Disk images pack entire folders or disks into a single compressed file, either
for transport across the Internet or simply for backup. They are Apple’s
preferred format for distributing Mac software. Disk images are also the only
archive format whose contents you can directly access in the Finder, without the
potentially slow and disk-consuming step of expanding the files into a folder.

DropDMG is the easiest way to create macOS disk images, as well as
cross-platform archives. Just drag and drop a folder or file and you’re done.
Or, you can drag an existing disk image or archive onto DropDMG to convert it to
any of the other supported formats or to burn it to CD or DVD.

DropDMG supports advanced options such as encrypted and segmented disk images,
background pictures and custom volume icons, and rich-text license agreements in
multiple languages. There are many time-saving features such as configurations
to keep track of your favorite combinations of settings. It can also be
automated via AppleScript, the command-line, and Automator.

The following is a partial list of DropDMG’s features, so that you can quickly
see what it can do and how it’s unique:

Overview

Create and convert disk images and archives with a simple drag
and drop. There are also many other convenient ways to invoke
DropDMG. You can create a disk image or archive from an existing file
or folder or create a new blank disk image.

DropDMG supports all the major formats, including compressed
.dmg files, .sparsebundle files, .zip and .tar.gz
archives, and hybrid disk images. Zlib disk
images and ZIP archives created by DropDMG are smaller than those
created by Disk Utility and the Finder.

Automatically hide invisible files such as .Trashes and
.fseventsd that are at the root of the disk image so that they
don’t clutter the window even if the customer has used
AppleShowAllFiles to make the Finder show invisible files.

Make your disk images Internet-enabled so that Safari
automatically expands them into a folder after download.

Burn CDs and DVDs with background pictures and icon layouts that
auto-open when the disc is inserted.

Store your license agreements and layouts in open formats
(RTF, XML) under version control.

Split large files or folders into multiple segments to burn
them to optical discs or easily transfer them over a network.

Verify the integrity of your backups and archives to ensure
that the media is still intact and that you’ll be able to
restore them if needed.

Create a device image that records the exact contents of a data
CD or DVD. You can then burn bootable backup copies of the
disc, or double-click the disk image to access its contents as
though the disc were still in your optical drive.

In one step, create a device image clone of an entire hard
drive, optimized for restoring using Apple Software Restore or
Disk Utility. This is useful for backups and for setting up
multiple computers in a lab.

Optionally enter your administrator password so that DropDMG
can back up all your files, with proper permissions and
ownership, while unattended.

Encryption

Encrypt files that you want to keep private. DropDMG’s
encrypted, writable disk images are safer than
Apple’s FileVault, but just as secure and searchable via Spotlight.
Compact them to reclaim unused space.

Keeps a detailed log of all the successful operations as well
as any errors, including statistics such as the throughput and
how much space was saved using compression. New log entries are also
reported via Notification Center and Growl.

Fast disk image mounting: turn off verification to quickly
mount disk images, use shadow files, and mount encrypted disk
images without having to re-type the passphrase for each
segment.

Make your favorite destination folders stay in the list of
recent folders.

Process the names of the output files to add the current date,
add the version number of an application being imaged, or make the
filename server-friendly.

Choose the file system for your disk image. This is especially
helpful for developers who want to test that their apps work with
different file systems. For HFS+, DropDMG supports journaled and
unjournaled formats as well as case-sensitive or case-insensitive.
DropDMG also supports the next-generation Apple File System (AFPS).

The DropDMG commands in the Services menu will become available the next
time you log in.

DropDMG includes an optional dropdmgcommand-line tool. It can be
installed as follows:

If you downloaded DropDMG direct from C-Command

Go to the Advanced tab of the Preferences window and click the
Install “dropdmg” Tool button. DropDMG will ask for an administrator
password, as it needs to copy the dropdmg file to the protected
/usr/local/bin or /usr/bin folder.

If you purchased DropDMG from Apple’s Mac App Store

Open the Terminal application. To install the command-line tool, enter these
commands:

The username and password for the automatic update are the ones for
logging into your Mac. They’re not related to DropDMG. If you don’t
know your password, you can resetit or update DropDMG by following
the “Manual Updating” instructions below.

Replace the old DropDMG application file with the new one. That is, if
DropDMG is installed in the Applications folder, drag the new
DropDMG application icon into the Applications folder and click
Replace when the Finder asks if you want to overwrite the old
version.

Note: If you get an error saying that the file is locked or you do not
have sufficient privileges, drag the old DropDMG to the trash and
empty it, and then drag the new one into the Applications folder.

Launch DropDMG.

Upgrades

DropDMG 3.5.3 is a paid upgrade for registered users of DropDMG 1.x and 2.x.
Discounts and free updates are available depending on when you originally
purchased DropDMG.

Mac App Store

If you purchased via the Mac App Store, you should update DropDMG using
the App Store application.

If your copy of DropDMG is damaged, you may need to download and install a
fresh copy.

If you are able to launch DropDMG, you can ask it to reinstall
itself. To do this, follow the Automatic Updating instructions (in
the Updating From a Previous Version section) but hold down the Option
key when you click the Check Now button.

If you’ve uninstalled DropDMG, you can always get it back by going
to the DropDMG Web site and clicking the Download button. After
installing it, you can enter your Serial Name and Serial Number
into the Purchase… window to take it out of trial mode. If you can’t
find your serial number, you can look it up online.

If you are considering uninstalling DropDMG because you’re having trouble
using it or it doesn’t seem to meet your needs, please contact us at
dropdmg@c-command.com. We’re happy to help get you up and running and always looking
for suggestions for how to improve DropDMG.

Removing DropDMG’s Application Files

To uninstall DropDMG, drag the DropDMG.app file from your Applications
folder to the trash.

You can uninstall the command-line tool and man page by typing these commands in
Terminal:

DropDMG automatically determines what you want it to do based on the files or
folders that you give it. The goal is to create an output file that matches the
options you’ve chosen in the preferences. For example, suppose you’ve set
DropDMG to create compressed .dmg files:

If you give DropDMG a folder, it will create a .dmg disk image
whose contents are the contents of the folder.

If you give DropDMG a volume, it will create a special device image
(in .dmg format) that is an exact copy of the volume.

If you give it a disk image file (e.g. .dmg or
.sparsebundle), DropDMG will convert it into a .dmg disk
image with the specified options.

If you give it an archive file (e.g. .zip or .tar.gz),
DropDMG will convert the archive into a .dmg disk image.

If you give it a file such as file.001, DropDMG will look for
file.002, file.003, etc. and join them into file.

If you give it some other type of file, it will create a .dmg
disk image whose contents are that file.

When given multiple files or folders, DropDMG creates a separate disk image or
archive for each. To group multiple items into a single image or archive, move
them into a new folder, and then drop it on DropDMG.

So how do you “give” DropDMG a file or folder to work with? There are many
ways:

DropDMG Window

Drag and drop onto the DropDMG window, or click the toolbar buttons.
Control-click or right-click on an entry in DropDMG’s log to operate on that
output file.

Drag and drop onto the DropDMG application icon in your Applications
folder. You can also add DropDMG’s icon to the Finder’s toolbar.

Services Menu

Select a file in the Finder (or another file manager) and choose DropDMG: Use Current
Configuration or DropDMG: Ask for Options from the Services menu
in the applications menu.

Contextual Menu

The services menu commands are also available when you Control-click or
right-click on a file.

Keyboard Shortcut

Use the Keyboard pane of System Preferences to assign a keyboard
shortcut to DropDMG: Use Current Configuration or DropDMG: Ask for
Options.

Automator

You can use Automator to
create workflows incorporating DropDMG actions. Frequently used workflows
can be accessed from a contextual menu in the Finder or saved as droplets.
DropDMG includes a Create Disk Image/Archive action for making new
images and archives, and also a Expand Disk Image action for converting
a .dmg disk image back into a folder.

AppleScript

In AppleScript Editor,
choose File ‣ Open Dictionary… to see the scripting commands that
DropDMG provides. Example scripts are available to show how the
commands work.

Command-line Tool

You can install the dropdmgcommand-line tool from the Advanced
preferences. To see the available options, type mandropdmg in Terminal.

A device image is a special kind of disk image that is an exact, block-level
copy of the source volume and its filesystem, including features such as hard
links and compressed system files. You can use device images to:

Create a complete backup of your Mac. Device images support
compression, so you can make the most efficient use of your storage, perhaps
keeping multiple full backups on the same drive. They also support
encryption, so that you can store your backup off-site (thus protecting
against fire, theft, etc.) without worrying about anyone else accessing your
sensitive files.

Create a reusable image of a Mac, with everything installed and
configured the way you want, then clone it onto multiple Macs, e.g.
in a computer lab, so that they are all set up identically.

Device images have several advantages over other formats:

Device images are generally faster to create than non-device images
containing the same files.

You can back up a bootable hard drive, then restore the backup, and
the restored drive will be bootable.

You can restore a device image to a hard drive without any special
software. Just boot from the installation DVD that came with your Mac and
choose Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.

Device images efficiently store linked files, so they’re great for
archiving old Time Machine
backups.

You can use DropDMG’s Verify Image… command to check that the
backup device is not damaged and that you’ll be able to restore the
files.

Since a device image is an exact copy of a drive, DropDMG has to make sure that
the drive contents don’t change while it’s making the image. In order to do
this, it unmounts the drive, copies the data, and then remounts the drive.
The startup disk is always in use and thus cannot be unmounted. To create a
device image of your startup disk there are several options:

Boot your Mac from an external hard drive. (It’s always a good idea
to have a bootable backup drive, anyway.)

Run DropDMG on another Mac and use Target Disk Mode to connect your Mac as a
hard disk.

Use a utility such as SuperDuper to clone your boot
drive to backup drive, and then use DropDMG to create a device image
of the backup drive. SuperDuper’s Smart Update feature can quickly
bring an on-site clone drive up-to-date. Then you can use DropDMG to
create an encrypted device image of the clone for off-site storage.

Device images of APFS volumes include all the volumes in the APFS
container. The system does not support device images of individual APFS
volumes.

Device images of APFS volumes cannot be mounted to access their files
directly. The system will report a “no mountable file systems” error.
However, you can still use Disk Utility to restore the disk image.

If you just want to a create a regular (non-device) image containing all the
files and folders on a volume, you can use CreateDeviceImages in the
esoteric preferences to tell DropDMG not to create device images.

By combining DropDMG’s imaging and burning features, you can easily back up your
files to CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, or Blu-ray. DropDMG will store the files
efficiently on the discs, and you can optionally protect them using encryption.

Go to the Configurations tab of DropDMG’s Preferences window and
click the + button to make a new configuration. Set the options
that you want to use for the backup. Probably you’ll want one of the
compressed .dmgformats. For an encrypted backup, choose an
encryption level and set a passphrase. Use the Sizes pop-down
menu to set the size of the segments to match the discs you’ll be
using. If you will be backing up an entire disk, make sure that Optimize
for restores is checked.

Note: Since you created a new configuration, you can skip this step next
time; just make sure that the proper configuration is selected.

To back up a folder, drag it onto the DropDMG window or use one
of the other methods. DropDMG will create a .dmg and (if
necessary) some .dmgpart files.

Use the Burn… command to burn the .dmg and .dmgpart files
to disc, making sure that it’s set to Burn disk images as files.

After the burning is complete, you can delete the .dmg and
.dmgpart files.

This backup method has a variety of advantages over ultra-simple backup methods
(e.g. Burn Folders in the Finder) and more specialized backup programs:

Collecting the files onto a .dmg file is better than burning the
files directly:

The .dmg file has an internal checksum. When you mount the
disk image or use DropDMG’s Verify Image… command, macOS
verifies that the backup disc is not damaged. This lets you
ensure that your backup remains valid and that the files can be
restored correctly.

You can easily backup large files that don’t fit on a single CD
or DVD because DropDMG will save them into disc-sized
.dmgpart files.

All file ownership and permissions metadata is preserved.

Backups created with DropDMG are stored in a standard macOS
format. The software needed to restore them is built into the
operating system.

The two-step process (creating the disk image files and then burning
them) saves time. If you were using software such as Retrospect to
back up a large folder, it would prompt you for discs as it copied
the files. Then, when it was done, it would prompt you for all the
discs again to verify them. During this time, you would not be able
to modify the files in the folder, because the backup could be
corrupted if you modified files that were in the midst of being
copied. Thus, the amount of time that your Mac is “out of
commission” is determined by the time it takes to do the burning and
swap all the discs.

With DropDMG, the first step of creating the .dmg files can run
unattended, while you’re at lunch or sleeping. When you get back to
your Mac, you can burn the files to disc at your leisure. Since the
folder has already been “snapshotted” to the disk image, you can
access and modify the folder while burning the discs. Furthermore,
if you have multiple optical drives you can save time by burning
multiple discs at a time. Since each disc is verified individually,
right after it’s burned, you don’t have to swap the discs twice.

Drag the CD or DVD icon onto the DropDMG window or use one of the
other methods. DropDMG; it will create a device image of the disc
and save it as a .dmg file.

Eject the disc.

Use the Burn… command to burn the .dmg file, making sure that
Burn contents of disk images is selected.

DropDMG will ask you to insert a blank disc; after doing so, click
the Burn button.

Tip: DVDs are faster to access than CDs. If you burn a DVD copy of an
emergency boot CD, your Mac will boot approximately 25% faster from the backup
than from the original CD. This can be a savings of a couple minutes.

Once you’ve backed up the contents of a hard disk or CD-ROM to a disk image,
how can you restore the files?

If You Just Need to Access Specific Files

Double-click the .dmg file to mount it, then locate the files using the
Finder. If a large disk image is split into multiple .dmg and .dmgpart
files, move or copy them all into a single folder before trying to mount the
.dmg.

If you have many .dmg files, you can use a utility such as CDFinder to
catalog them so that you can easily find which .dmg contains the files that
you’re looking for.

To Restore an Entire Drive

Open the Disk Utility program in the Utilities folder of the
Applications folder.

You can also access Disk Utility by booting from your macOS
installation CD/DVD or recovery partition; that way, you can restore
your drive without first having to install macOS.

Choose Scan Image for Restore… from Disk Utility’s
Images menu and select the disk image file. If you used DropDMG’s
Optimize for restores option when creating the backup, you can skip
this step.

Select the target drive in the list at the left side of the main
Disk Utility window.

Note: With macOS 10.7 or later, the target drive must be at least
as large as the source drive—the full capacity of the source drive, even
if some of this is free space. This is because Disk Utility does an
exact block copy, so everything has to line up (including free space).
If your target drive is too small, you may be able to get around this by
using DropDMG to convert your disk image to read-write format and then
using Disk Utility’s Resize Image command to make it smaller (by
getting rid of the free space).

macOS 10.12 and later: Click on the Restore button in the toolbar.
Click the Image… button and choose your disk image file.

macOS 10.11 and earlier: Click on the Restore tab. Drag the image file
onto the Source field, and then drag the target disk from the list to
the Destination field.

When you click the Restore button, Disk Utility will erase
the target drive and replace its contents with an exact copy of
the drive that the image was created from. If the original drive
was bootable, the restored drive will be, too.

To Restore an Entire CD or DVD

Choose Burn… from the File menu and select the disk image file. Make
sure that Burn contents of disk images is selected. This lets you create
a copy of the original disc.

This section describes how to create a standard disk image for distributing a
Mac application. The disk image will have a background picture, a single
.app file, an Applications folder symlink for easy drag-installs, a
volume icon, and a license agreement.

Click Preferences in the toolbar to open DropDMG’s Preferences window.

Use the pop-up menus to select the license and layout that you created.

Make sure that Custom volume icon is checked. This will make
DropDMG render a mounted disk image icon based on the icon of your
application. If you prefer to use your own icon file, click Set
Icon…

The above steps only need to be done once. In the future, if you’ve used
DropDMG for other tasks in the interim, just select the configuration
from the pop-up menu to reload those settings.

To create the disk image, drag your application file onto the DropDMG
window or use one of the other methods. DropDMG will create a
.dmg file next to the application. You can optionally automate this
step using the dropdmg command-line tool or AppleScript.

Multiple Files

If your disk image will have multiple files, not just an application (.app)
and an Applications folder placeholder:

In Step 3, add additional files by dragging and dropping the files into
your layout or by clicking the Add Icon… button.

In Step 6, instead of dragging your application file onto DropDMG, put
the files in a folder and drag the folder onto DropDMG.

Apple’s FileVault encrypts
your whole hard drive. This is overkill for many users, needlessly slowing
access to files and increasing the risk of data corruption. Additionally, whole
drive encryption does not secure your files from other user accounts on the same
Mac.

DropDMG lets you use the same encryption technology to protect a select group of
files from prying eyes. Each group of files is stored on an encrypted disk
image. Each disk image can hold as many or as few files as you want and can have
its own passphrase. The files will be secure if your hard drive is stolen or if
you send the disk image across a network. The files will be searchable via
Spotlight after you’ve entered the passphrase.

To create an encrypted disk image

Choose New Blank Disk Image… from the File menu. Set an encryption
level and passphrase. A white volume icon will appear in the Finder. You can
move existing files onto the disk image or create new ones there.

To lock your encrypted files

Click the eject button next to the white volume icon in the Finder’s sidebar.

To access your encrypted files

Double-click the disk image file. macOS will ask for the passphrase, and
it can optionally remember it in the keychain. DropDMG’s Mount Image…
command provides additional options.

Tip: You can save time by creating a Login Item to make some encrypted files
available whenever you log into your Mac. Choose System Preferences… from
the Apple menu. Click on Accounts, and then select your account. Then click
Login Items. Drag your .dmg file into the list. Now, whenever you log
into your Mac, it will mount the disk image.

Tip: If you copied existing files to the encrypted disk image, you may want to
remove any traces of the unencrypted files from your drive. To do this, put the
originals in the trash and choose Finder ‣ Secure Empty Trash… or use the
Erase Free Space… button in Disk Utility.

DropDMG automatically saves configurations, licenses, and layouts in its
folder in ApplicationSupport. You may, however, wish to share your licenses
and layouts with other users. This is especially useful if you want to keep them
under a version control system such as Subversion or Git.

Exporting

To export a configuration, drag it from the source list to the Finder. This will
create a .plist file. If the configuration references any licenses or
layouts, you will need to export them as described below.

To export a layout, drag it from the source list to the Finder. This will create
a folder containing an Info.plist, the background image file, etc.

To export a license, drag it from the source list to the Finder. This will
create a folder containing a .plist file and a .rtf file for each
language.

Importing

To import a configuration, layout, or license, quit DropDMG and drag the
exported file or folder into the corresponding DropDMG folder:

When creating a disk image using the dropdmgcommand-line tool, you can
specify detached licenses or layouts using the --license-folder and
--layout-folder parameters. The configuration options can be specified
directly, without referencing an exported configuration file. Corresponding
parameters are available for AppleScript.

Click the Check Now button, and DropDMG will tell you whether a newer
version is available for download. By default, DropDMG will automatically
check for new versions each time it is launched and once per day. You can
disable this feature by unchecking the Check for updates automatically
checkbox.

Updating

If a new version is available, DropDMG will tell you what’s new in that
version. Click Download to have DropDMG download the .dmg file for
the new version to your downloads folder. Click Download & Install to have
it download the .dmg and then update the installed DropDMG application
to the new version. For more information, please see Updating From a Previous
Version.

Installing a Fresh Copy

You can hold down the Option key when you click Check Now to make
DropDMG always download the latest version, even if your version is
already up-to-date. This is an easy way to download and re-install a fresh copy
of DropDMG if your copy is damaged.

Privacy

To check for a new version, DropDMG contacts a Web server at
c-command.com over a secure connection. DropDMG transmits the
following information to the server: the name of the product (DropDMG) and
its version, the version of macOS, the kind of Mac and processor,
whether DropDMG has been purchased, and the name of the current language. This
information is used to guide future development. No personal information is
transmitted.

Mac App Store

If you purchased DropDMG or EagleFiler via the Mac App Store, the Software
Update… menu command is not present, and updates are available via the App
Store application.

When you launch DropDMG for the first time, the Purchase window will
automatically open. You can also open it by choosing Purchase… from the
DropDMG menu.

Trial/Demo Period

DropDMG has a free trial. During the trial period, DropDMG is fully
functional; the only difference in behavior is that it will periodically remind
you that you are using the trial. To use DropDMG in trial mode, you can
simply close the Purchase window.

The trial period lasts for 30 days. (After the 30 days, if you haven’t had a
chance to use DropDMG very much, you can continue using it for up to a
total of 7 launches.) To use DropDMG beyond the trial period, you must
purchase it. This entitles you to free updates and support.

Soon after paying, you’ll receive an e-mail with your serial number. Enter the
name and serial number from the e-mail into the Purchase window and click
Personalize. You do not have to “install the purchased version”; rather,
DropDMG will then know that you have purchased and you can keep using it
as before—with all the preferences that you had set and data that you had
entered.

Reinstalling a Previous Purchase

If you need to re-install DropDMG, you can simply re-enter your Serial
Name and Serial Number and click Personalize; there’s no need to
purchase again.

If you cannot find your serial number, click the Look Up My Serial Number
button. This will open a form where you can enter your e-mail address and look
up your order information.

License Information

A license for DropDMG is good for one person or one computer. This means
that you can use it on your desktop Mac and your laptop, or you and your family
can use it (in separate user accounts) on a shared Mac. If there are multiple
users on multiple Macs, you should purchase multiple licenses. Discounts for
packs of 2, 10, and 50 licenses are available above. A family (all living in the
same household) can share a 2-user license. If you already have a single
license, you can upgrade to a family license. To do this, e-mail your old order
number to sales@c-command.com, and we’ll send you a coupon code.

Upgrade Policy

All maintenance releases (1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.6.1, etc.) and minor feature updates
(1.1, 1.2, 1.5, etc.) are free. We have a track record of many such updates, and
they have included significant new features. Major upgrades (2.0, 3.0) are free
if you purchased the previous version within the last six months. If you
purchased longer ago than that, you get a 50% discount. (Note: The upgrade
discounts are only available if you originally purchased direct from C-Command,
since the Mac App Store does not support upgrades.)

Mac App Store

The Purchase… menu command is not present if you purchased via the Mac App
Store. In that case, there is no trial period, and licensing is based on your
iTunes account rather than the number of people or computers.

We’re happy wherever you choose to purchase our software. The Mac App Store
makes it very convenient to buy, download, and install, and you get updates via
the store. The purchase is tied to your iTunes account. If you buy direct, you
drag-and-drop to install and get updates via the application’s auto-updater
or the Web site. Either way, you can sign up for the DropDMG News mailing list or
the DropDMG RSS feed to be notified about new versions and important product news.

Prices

Pricing is substantially the same, although there will be slight differences due
to Apple’s pricing tiers and currency conversions. All Mac App Store purchases
are for single-user licenses. Purchasing direct, you can also buy family packs
and get additional volume and educational discounts. Although you pay the same
price, Apple’s higher fees mean that direct purchases send 25+% more of your
money to C-Command.

Trials

DropDMG has a fully-featured 30-day trial version that’s available
from the Web site. If you purchase direct, you can click a link in your order
confirmation to enter your serial number and take it out of trial mode. If you
purchase from the Mac App Store, you should first delete your trial version so
that the store doesn’t see DropDMG as already installed. Your
preferences and user data will be seamlessly shared between both versions.

Updates and Upgrades

Our standard policy has been to provide customers lots of free minor updates and
50% discounts on major upgrades. The Mac App Store does not support upgrade
pricing, and Apple does not allow
upgrade pricing for cross-grades out of the Mac App
Store, so we can only offer the discount if you originally purchased direct from
C-Command.

Updates to DropDMG will be available from the Mac App Store sometime after
they are available direct from C-Command. This delay is due to Apple’s review
process, which has historically taken anywherefrom a few days
to a few weeks. For example:

Regular app review usually takes about a week.

Mac OS X 10.9 introduced a bug that could
prevent apps downloaded from the store from being signed (and, thus,
launched). Therefore, we had to suspend submitting updates to Apple for
several months in order to prevent customers from downloading updates
that couldn’t be launched.

In June 2015, there was a
problem with Apple’s server that was causing it to reject the EagleFiler
archive that we uploaded, even though it was valid. It took a month for
Apple to fix this.

In May 2016, two
Apple server bugs prevented shipping a DropDMG update for about three
months. DropDMG had to be removed from sale, and previous purchasers
could not download a working version from the Mac App Store.

Once an updated version of DropDMG is available, the Mac App Store does
not let you download previous versions. This can make it impossible to reinstall
DropDMG if you are using an older version of macOS than the new version
of DropDMG supports. With the direct version of DropDMG, you can
always download previous versions for use with prior OS versions.

Transfers

If you purchase via the Mac App Store, the direct version will recognize your
receipt from Apple. So (barring changes in the way Apple handles receipts)
you’ll always have the option of downloading the software yourself to get the
full features and the latest updates. Apple, unfortunately, provides no way to
transfer purchases in the other direction, for existing customers who would
prefer to receive updates via the Mac App Store.

Feature Differences

We intend the Mac App Store and direct versions of DropDMG to be as
similar as possible, however some differences are necessary in order to comply
with the rules for Apple’s store. Our first priority is to design the direct
version as best we know how; it should not be limited by Mac App Store
considerations. Secondly, if a feature cannot be accepted in the Mac App Store,
we will try to adapt it or make it available in another way. This may not always
be possible or practical, however. Additionally, the Mac App Store rules are
subject to change, and so DropDMG will change with them. If it becomes
impossible to deliver DropDMG through the Mac App Store with the level of
features and quality that we consider essential, we may remove it from the store
and only sell it directly.

Here are the current differences between the Mac App Store and direct versions:

Some files and folders have ownership or permissions such that DropDMG
needs an administrator password to correctly copy them. The direct
version will ask for the password as needed. The Mac App Store version
will stop and report an error.

When you choose New from Folder/File… from the File menu, DropDMG brings
up a window where you can select a source file or folder. Hold down the Command
or Shift key to select multiple source items. For each source item, DropDMG will
create a new disk image or archive, using the options from the selected
configuration.

You can also choose a volume (e.g. a hard drive or optical disk) as the source
for creating a disk image. In this case, DropDMG will create a special device
image that is an exact copy of the source volume and its filesystem.

A shortcut for New from Folder/File… is to drag the source folder or file
onto the DropDMG window or DropDMG’s Dock icon.

This creates an empty disk image with the specified format and size and mounts
it in the Finder. The blank disk image acts as a virtual disk. Applications can
directly read and write to files stored on the disk image, but the files
disappear when you eject the disk image. Double-click the disk image file to
make its contents accessible again.

By setting the disk image to be encrypted, your virtual disk can act as a mini
FileVault. When using FileVault, your
entire drive is
encrypted. This is slow, makes your data more susceptible to corruption, and (on
macOS 10.6 and earlier) limits the ability to back up and recover files using
Time Machine.
Disk images created by DropDMG use the same encryption technology as FileVault,
and they avoid FileVault’s drawbacks by only encrypting the files that you
choose.

Image Format

Blank disk images can be created in .dmg, .sparseimage, and
.sparsebundle formats. For more information, see Format section.

File System

The supported file systems are:

macOS Extended

HFS+ is the former standard file system for macOS. You might choose it
over HFS+J for maximum compatibility and in situations where you need to
save space by not storing the journal. Compatible with macOS 10.0 and
later.

macOS Extended (Journaled) — Recommended

HFS+J is the standard file system for macOS. Compatible with macOS
10.3 and later.

macOS Extended (Case-sensitive)

HFSX is less safe than JHFS+X, but it can be useful in situations where
you need to save space by not storing the journal. Compatible with
macOS 10.3 and later.

macOS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)

JHFS+X is the file system used by iOS 10.2 and earlier. Compatible with
macOS 10.3 and later.

Apple File System (Case-insensitive) — Mac

Case-insensitive APFS
is the file system used by macOS 10.13 and later. Blank disk images of
this type can be used for testing how apps work with a file system that
is Unicode normalization-preserving
(unlike HFS+) but not normalization-sensitive. Developer preview
with macOS 10.12.4 and later. Fully supported on macOS 10.13 and later.

Note: macOS 10.13 currently has two bugs
that can lead to data loss if you try to copy more data to a sparse APFS
disk image than its containing volume can hold.

Apple File System (Case-sensitive) — iOS

Case-sensitive APFS
is the file system used by iOS 10.3 and later. Blank disk images of
this type can be used for testing how apps work with a file system that
is Unicode normalization-preserving
(unlike HFS+) but not normalization-sensitive.
Developer preview with macOS 10.12 and later. Fully supported on macOS
10.13 and later.

Encryption

The encryption can be None, 128-bit AES, or 256-bit AES. For
more information on the encryption types, see the Encryption section. You
can use the From Configuration pop-down menu to quickly enter a
passphrase saved in the keychain.

Volume Size

This is the maximum capacity of the blank disk image. For .dmg files,
this is also how much space the disk image will take up. Sparse disk images
will consume less disk space, depending on how much of the capacity you use.

Volume Name

The name of the virtual disk, as shown in the Devices section of the
Finder’s sidebar. This need not necessarily be the same as the name of the
disk image file, which is set in the Save As field.

When you choose Convert Image/Archive… from the File menu, DropDMG
brings up a window where you can select a source disk image or archive. Hold
down the Command or Shift key to select multiple source items. DropDMG will
convert each source item into a new disk image or archive, using the options
from the selected configuration.

You can use Convert Image/Archive… to join a segmented disk image (a
.dmg file and multiple .dmgpart files) into a single .dmg file.
Select the desired format in the preferences, and make sure that Limit
segments to is unchecked. Then tell DropDMG to convert the source .dmg
file.

A shortcut for Convert Image/Archive… is to drag the source disk image or
archive onto the DropDMG window or DropDMG’s Dock icon.

Sparse disk images, created for example using the New Blank Disk Image…
command, grow in size when you add files to them. When you remove files from
them and empty the trash, the space is available for adding more files, but it
is still “reserved” for use by the disk image. Thus, the size of the disk image
file does not automatically decrease. The Compact Image… command lets you
reclaim the unused space, thus shrinking the disk image file.

Depending on how fragmented the contents of the sparse disk image are, it may
not be possible to reclaim all of the unused space. (It may help to use a
defragmentation utility such as iDefrag or Drive Genius.) To shrink your sparse
disk image to the minimum possible size, use the Convert Image/Archive…
command to create a fresh file.

You can hold down the Command or Shift key to select multiple files for
compacting.

This command lets you change the passphrase of an encrypted disk image. This is
a fast operation that does not require copying the whole file or use lots of
temporary disk space. To change the passphrase and the format, use the
Convert Image/Archive… command.

On macOS 10.10 and later, DropDMG will first prompt for the new passphrase, and
then the system will prompt for the old one. On earlier versions of macOS, the
system will first prompt for the old passphrase and then the new one.

When choosing the file, you can hold down the Command or Shift key to change the
passphrases of multiple images at once.

This command lets you get information about a disk image, such as its format,
information about its partitions, how much data it contains, and the
effectiveness of the compression.

You can hold down the Command or Shift key to get information about multiple
disk images at once. The Enter Passphrase… button lets you specify the
passphrase for reading an encrypted disk image. The From Configuration
pop-down menu lets you use a passphrase that’s stored in your keychain as part
of a configuration.

The most straightforward way to mount a disk image is to double-click it. This
works on any macOS installation, even if DropDMG isn’t installed.

DropDMG also provides the Mount Image… command in the File menu, for
additional options and convenience.

Verify

Verification ensures that the contents of the disk image are intact, i.e.
the file is not damaged. You can turn off verification to reduce the time it
takes to mount the disk image. Also, if you know that a disk image is
damaged, you can turn off verification (which you know will fail, anyway) to
access the disk image and try to recover the files in it. For more
information on verification, see the Verify Image… section.

Enable file ownership

When you mount an image by double-clicking it, macOS treats every file on
the mounted image as though it were owned by you (the current user). When
you mount an image using this option, the files are displayed with their
actual owners, as stored on the disk image. Thus, if you use DropDMG to
back up a collection of files whose ownership matters, you should also use
DropDMG to mount the image when you restore from that backup.

Shadow file

This option lets you mount a read-only disk image as read-write. Any changes
that you make are written to a .shadow file so that the original disk
image file remains unchanged. One use for this feature is if you need to use
Spotlight to search a read-only disk image. Spotlight requires write access
(even if its index is already up-to-date), but it will work if you mount the
disk image using a shadow file. To make a new disk image file that
incorporates the changes from the shadow file, drag the mounted disk image
onto DropDMG.

Passphrase

When you double-click an encrypted disk image, macOS prompts you for the
passphrase. DropDMG lets you avoid this step, which is particularly handy
when bulk-mounting images with the same passphrase or when mounting
segmented disk images. The Enter Passphrase… button lets you specify the
passphrase for mounting the disk image. The From Configuration pop-down
menu lets you use a passphrase that’s stored in your keychain as part of a
configuration.

Location

Normally, disk images are mounted on the desktop. You can also specify some
other location in your local filesystem. This is useful when another
application looks for files in a particular folder. For example, say that
you want to encrypt your mail. You could create a New Blank Disk Image…
and then mount it at /Users/<username>/Library/Mail/, and then Apple
Mail will stores its files on that disk image.

One advantage of using DropDMG’s Mount Image… command, rather than
double-clicking a disk image in the Finder, is that DropDMG only makes you enter
the passphrase for an encrypted, segmented disk image once. The Finder requires
that you type the passphrase once for each segment or that you store the
passphrase in the keychain, which you might not want to do.

This command lets you verify that a disk image file is in working order (i.e.
that it is not damaged) before it becomes a serious problem. You can tell
DropDMG to verify a folder, and it will find all the disk images in that folder
(and its subfolders) and verify them.

For example, if there is damage to your disk image and a file becomes corrupt,
you’ll learn of the problem as soon as you use the Verify Image… command.
Without Verify Image…, you might only learn of the problem when you tried to
access the damaged file on the disk image (perhaps a long time in the future),
and perhaps not even then, because the corruption might not be readily apparent.
Because you learn about the damage early, you can restore a correct version of
the file from a backup, rather than filling your future backups with damaged
copies of the file.

The verification works by reading the entire contents of the disk image and
calculating a checksum. This is then compared with the checksum that was stored
in the disk image when it was first created. Because modifying the contents of a
disk image would invalidate the checksum, only disk images in read-only formats
can be verified.

You can hold down the Command or Shift key to verify multiple disk images at
once. The Enter Passphrase… button lets you specify the passphrase for
accessing encrypted disk images. The From Configuration pop-down menu lets
you use a passphrase that’s stored in your keychain as part of a
configuration.

A shortcut for Verify Image… is to drag the source disk image onto the
DropDMG window or DropDMG’s Dock icon while holding down the Control key.

This command lets you burn files and folders to CD, DVD, or Blu-ray. This
requires an internal or external drive that supports macOS disc burning. You
can continue to use DropDMG to create other disk images or archives while a disc
is burning, and if you have multiple optical drives you can even burn more than
one disc at a time.

When you choose to burn a disk image file (rather than a regular file or a
folder), you have two options:

Burn contents of disk images

This makes the contents of the burned disc look like the contents of the
disk image. The volume name of the mounted disk image becomes the name of
the disc. If the disk image is a device image that contains multiple
partitions, then the burned disc will have multiple partitions. This is
useful when:

You want the burned disc to contain the contents of the disk image,
not the disk image file itself. The contents of the burned disc will
not be compressed or encrypted.

The disk image is segmented, and you want to join the segments and
burn them onto a single disc.

Burn disk images as files

This burns a disc whose content is the single disk image file. The name of
the disc is the file’s name, without the extension. This is useful when:

You want the burned disc to contain a single file, the disk
image. If the disk image file was compressed or encrypted, so
will be the burned file.

The disk image is segmented, and you want to burn each segment
to a different disc.

Keyboard Shortcuts

As a shortcut to choosing Burn… from the File menu, you can hold down
the Shift key while dragging and dropping a folder onto the DropDMG window or
DropDMG’s Dock icon. If you want to burn an disk images as files, hold down the
Shift and Option keys.

When burning a CD, check the Leave disc appendable box after inserting the
blank disc. DropDMG will leave the disc “open” after burning so that you can
burn additional files to the same disc under a new session, space permitting.

Once you’ve downloaded the macOS installer from the Mac App Store, this
command helps you to create an installation disk. This makes it possible to
re-install macOS, install it in a virtual machine, or install it on a
different Mac without having to download it again. Additionally, if there are
problems with a Mac’s hard drive, you may not be able to boot it and access the
installer or recovery partition, but you will still be able to reinstall from
the install disk that you create here. You can also use it as an emergency disk
to boot a Mac and repair or reformat its hard drive, or to restore from a Time
Machine backup.

When updating to a new version of macOS, it is recommended that you create your
install disk before running the macOS installer, as the installer may delete
itself (which would require you to download it again to create the install disk).

Preparing the Install Disk

You can create an install disk using a spare hard drive, USB flash drive,
or SD card. Just connect or insert the disk and make sure it shows up in
the Finder.

You can also create an install disk image, for use with virtualization
software or for later restoration to a disk. Use DropDMG’s New Blank
Disk Image… command to create a disk image in Sparse Bundle format
with DVD+R DL for the volume size.

Creating the Install Disk

Choose Create macOS Install Disk from the File menu. DropDMG will ask
you to select an installer (downloaded from the Mac App Store or Apple’s
developer site) and then to select a destination volume. It will then erase the
destination volume and use it to create a bootable install disk.

Mac App Store

The Mac App Store version of DropDMG cannot create a bootable installer volume
due to App Store limitations. However, you can still create one manually using
the Terminal application:

Make sure that your destination volume is named Installer.

From the Finder’s Go menu, choose Utilities, then open the
Terminal application.

Sometimes a large file is split into smaller pieces for easier transfer over the
Internet or multiple CDs/DVDs. This command lets you combine file.001,
file.002, file.003, etc. back into a single file file, provided that
all the pieces are in the same folder.

This command is only for use with files created by other software that are named
in the above manner. DropDMG’s segments feature creates files such as
file.dmg, file.002.dmgpart, file.003.dmgpart, etc. A segmented disk
image can be accessed by double-clicking the .dmg file; it is not necessary
to first join the part files. If you do need to combine a segmented disk image
and its parts into a single .dmg file, use the Convert Image/Archive…
feature.

As a shortcut for Join Files…, you can drag the .001 file onto the
DropDMG window or DropDMG’s Dock icon.

The Show/Hide Log Detail commands control whether the log detail drawer of
the DropDMG window is open. The drawer shows additional information about the
selected log entry, such as what the source and destination files were, how fast
the data was copied, how much disk space was saved, and error information.

These commands control whether the log in the DropDMG window shows every log
entry (including successfully completed operations) or just the log entries for
operations that failed with an error or were canceled.

DropDMG can perform multiple operations at once, simultaneously creating disk
images, burning them, verifying them, etc. This window shows the operations that
are currently in progress and what states they are in. You can cancel an
operation by clicking its × button.

DropDMG remembers between launches whether the window is open.

A shortcut for opening the Activity window is to click the progress spinner
at the bottom of the DropDMG window.

At the top is a toolbar with shortcut buttons for accessing
frequently used commands. You can choose which commands are
available by choosing Customize Toolbar… from the View menu.

Below the toolbar, a pop-up menu lets you pick one of the
configurations. This determines the options that will be used to
create a disk image or archive. Hold down the Option key while
choosing from the pop-up menu to open a configuration for editing.

The log shows a list of the completed operations. The Show All Log
Entries/Errors Only menu commands determine which log entries are
shown. You can copy log entries as text using Edit ‣ Copy or
delete them by pressing the Delete key. The Remove log
entries preferences lets you set DropDMG to auto-delete old log
entries.

You can Control-click on a log entry to perform an operation on that entry’s
file. For example, if you’ve just created a .dmg file you could burn it.

When DropDMG is busy, the bottom bar tells how many operations are
in progress. You can click the progress spinner to open the
Activity window and see more detail.

DropDMG provides many options for creating disk images and archives.
Configurations let you create named sets of these options, so that you can
quickly switch between your favorite combinations rather than re-entering all
the settings each time.

Use the + button to create a new configuration and the - button or the
Delete key to remove one. Several commands are available in the action menu and
contextual menu:

Make Default

Change the current configuration as shown in the DropDMG window. You can
also double-click on a configuration in the list.

Duplicate Configuration

Create a new configuration with the same options as the selected one.

Rename Configuration

Change the name of the selected configuration. You can also click-and-hold
on the name or press the Return or Enter key.

Tip: You can quickly change configurations, without first opening the
Preferences window, by using the pop-up menu in the DropDMG window, by
Control-clicking on DropDMG’s icon in the Dock, or by using Temporary
options.

The contents of a read-only disk image can be directly accessed from the
Finder, but they cannot be modified. Read-only disk images support
licenses. They have internal checksums for use with the Verify Image…
command. In order to search a read-only disk image via Spotlight, use the
Mount Image… command and select the Shadow file option.

.dmg zlib — smaller file, faster

A disk image compressed using zlib. The file is relatively compact
and quick to access. This is DropDMG’s recommended format for general
use if your files need compatibility with macOS 10.10 or earlier.
DropDMG creates smaller zlib-compressed disk images than Disk Utility.
You can control the level of compression via the ZlibLevelesoteric
preference. Compatible with macOS 10.2 and later.

.dmg LZFSE — smaller file, fastest

A disk image compressed using LZFSE (Lempel-Ziv +
Finite State Entropy). The files are slightly smaller than
zlib-compressed disk images, with encoding that is twice as fast and
decoding that is three times as fast. This is DropDMG’s recommended
format for general use if your files can require macOS 10.11 or
later. Compatible with macOS 10.11 and later.

.dmg bzip2 — smallest file, slower

A disk image compressed using bzip2. Depending on the type of data
stored, this can be significantly smaller than a zlib-compressed disk
image. It is also slower to create and access. Compatible with macOS
10.4 and later.

.dmg — no compression

An uncompressed disk image will always be larger than a compressed one.
However, with certain types of content (music, photos, already
compressed files) the difference in size will be slight, and an
uncompressed disk image will generally be faster to create and access.
Compatible with macOS 10.2 and later.

Read-write Mac Disk Image

The contents of a read-write disk image can be directly accessed from the
Finder, and you can add, remove, and modify files. Read-write disk images
can be created from existing files/folders or by using the New Blank Disk
Image… command.

.sparsebundle — most efficient

Sparse bundle disk images appear as a single file but are actually
stored as a folder with many files inside. This makes it more efficient
to back them up using Time Machine or other backup utilities, as only
the changed parts need to be copied. Additionally, sparse bundle disk
images work well with the Compact Image… command. Compatible with
macOS 10.5 and later.

.sparseimage — more efficient

Sparse disk images are stored as a single file. This can make backups
inefficient for large disk images, because the entire file must be
copied each time. The Compact Image… command generally does not
reclaim as much disk space as with sparse bundle disk images. Compatible
with macOS 10.3 and later.

.dmg — constant file size

The disk image is stored as a single file. This is less efficient than a
sparse disk image because the file size is determined by the capacity
of the disk image rather than by the amount of data currently stored
on it. This can be desirable, for example if you want to reserve a
certain amount of space for the disk image’s use. Compatible with macOS
10.2 and later.

Cross-platform Archive

Archives make your files accessible to computers running other operating
systems (Windows, Linux, etc.). Archives are slower and require more disk
space than disk images, as they must first be expanded before the contents
are accessible in the Finder. DropDMG creates special archives that preserve
resource forks and Mac metadata. This extra information is ignored by other
operating systems.

.tar.gz — smaller file, faster

A tape archive, compressed using gzip. The file is relatively compact
and quick to create and expand. Compatible with macOS 10.4 and later.

.tar.bz2 — smaller file, faster

A tape archive, compressed using bzip2. Depending on the type of data
stored, this can be significantly smaller than a .tar.gz archive. It
is also slower to create and expand. Compatible with macOS 10.4 and
later.

.tar — no compression

An uncompressed archive will always be larger than a compressed one.
However, with certain types of content (music, photos, already
compressed files) the difference in size will be slight, and an
uncompressed archive will generally be faster to create and expand.
Compatible with macOS 10.4 and later.

.zip — smaller file, faster

A ZIP archive is similar to a .tar.gz archive except that this
format is more common on Windows. DropDMG creates smaller ZIP archives
than the Finder. ZIP archives do not preserve creation dates or Unix
ownership. Compatible with macOS 10.3 and later.

Cross-platform Disk Image

.cdr DVD/CD-R Master

A master disk image is an uncompressed, read-only disk image. If created
from a file or folder, it will have a Mac filesystem; if created from a
volume, the filesystem will be unchanged. This is mainly useful for
imaging an existing volume (e.g. copying a CD, DVD, or Blu-ray disc) or
creating a Mac disk image to burn using a non-Mac computer. Compatible
with macOS 10.0 and later.

A hybrid disk image is like a master. Additionally, the image contains
multiple filesystems so that the contents may be accessed using any
operating system. Mac-specific files such as .DS_Store are hidden
from the non-Mac filesystems. Compatible with macOS 10.0 and later.

Legacy NDIF Mac Disk Image

NDIF disk images are compatible with System 7, Mac OS 8–9, and macOS.
These can be useful for exchanging files with legacy Macs or for use with
emulators such as Sheepshaver and
Basilisk. NDIF disk image files use resource
forks, so some care must be taken in transferring them over the Internet.
They are also limited to 2 GB of logical size.

Note: Microsoft Windows also uses disk image files whose names end with
.img, but it does not read the NDIF format. To create a .img disk
image for Windows, tell DropDMG to use the .iso or .cdr format and
then rename the file to .img.

Encrypted images require a passphrase for access; the image contents are secure
from anyone who doesn’t know the passphrase. DropDMG uses Apple’s implementation
of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm. Two different strengths
of encryption are available:

128-bit AES — faster, recommended

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has announced that it may be used
for SECRET level documents. Compatible with macOS 10.3 and later.

256-bit AES — more secure

The NSA has announced that it may be used for TOP SECRET level documents.
Compatible with macOS 10.5 and later.

Click the Set Passphrase… button to choose the passphrase that you want to
use. To make sure that you’ve typed what you meant to type, you must enter the
same passphrase twice.

You can click the Set Passphrase… and then Show Passphrase to verify
that the passphrase is what you intended.

DropDMG stores the passphrase securely in the system keychain. You can use the
Keychain Access application to control whether the keychain password must be
entered before creating an encrypted disk image or viewing the passphrase in
DropDMG. If you prefer DropDMG to prompt you for a passphrase each time you
create a disk image, leave the passphrase blank.

DropDMG lets you split large disk images into multiple pieces, to keep the size
of each file below a set limit. This can be useful for transferring large files
over the Internet or burning them to disc. The filenames of the pieces will end
with .dmg, .002.dmgpart, .003.dmgpart, etc.

To access the contents of a segmented disk image, make sure the .dmg file
and all the .dmgpart files are in the same folder. (If you had burned the
pieces to disc you would need to copy them all back to the same folder on a hard
drive.) Then double-click the .dmg file or use DropDMG’s Mount Image…
command.

To split an existing disk image into smaller pieces, set the segment size and
then use the Convert Image/Archive… command.

To join multiple segments into a single disk image file, make sure that all the
segments are in the same folder, uncheck Limit segments to ___ MB, and then
use the Convert Image/Archive… command.

Segmented ZIP Archives

DropDMG can create segmented ZIP archives (e.g. .z01, .z02, .zip).
Such archives cannot be expanded by macOS’s built-in Archive Utility, but
there are free third-party expansion utilities such as The Unarchiver.

Segment Sizes

Sizes are specified in megabytes (base 10). The Sizes pop-down menu lets you
enter common segment sizes for CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs. The sizes are
chosen so that a segment of that size can be burned to the disc as a file. The
actual disc capacities may vary slightly, as will the sizes of the segments
produced by the disk imaging engine.

Normally when a disk image is mounted, it shows up on the desktop with a plain
white icon that looks like a hard drive. With this option checked, DropDMG will
customize the icon in one of two modes:

Automatic

If the top level of the image contains an application, DropDMG will badge
the application’s icon onto the white drive icon. Or, if the disk image
contains a single file, DropDMG will badge that file’s icon onto the drive.
DropDMG renders an optimized version of the badged icon for each size up to
512×512.

Manual

To choose your own graphic file to use as the icon:

Click the Set Icon… button.

Select the graphic file and click Choose.

Select the source folder (the folder that you will drop onto DropDMG
when you create the disk image) and click Choose. DropDMG will
convert your graphic file into an invisible .VolumeIcon.icns in
the source folder.

Now, whenever you create a disk image from that source folder
(provided that Custom volume icon is checked) DropDMG will use
the .icns file to set the volume icon.

If you want DropDMG to automatically create the icon based on the main
file in your source folder, skip this step. To use your own graphic file
for the icon, click the Set Icon… button. Select the graphic file and
click Choose. Then select the source folder and click Choose.

Drag your source folder onto DropDMG’s icon in the Dock. This will create
a .cdr file.

Choose Burn… from DropDMG’s File menu. Make sure that Burn
contents of disk images is checked. Then select the .cdr file and
burn your disc.

Creating a Sparse Disk Image With a Custom Icon

DropDMG currently does not support directly creating a .sparsebundle or
.sparseimage disk image with a custom icon. You can, however, create a
.dmg disk image with a custom icon and then convert it to the desired format.

When an Internet-enabled disk image is downloaded by Safari (and Safari’s Open
“safe” files after downloading preference is checked), it is automatically
expanded into a folder and the disk image file is moved to the trash.

If the disk image has a background picture, it is not transferred to the
expanded folder.

Note: Safari under macOS 10.7 and later does not honor the Internet-enabled
setting, although there has been no indication from Apple that the feature has
been removed.

Note: On macOS 10.2.2 through 10.2.8, this also happens whenever an
Internet-enabled disk image is mounted (by any program). On earlier versions of
macOS, Internet-enabled disk images are treated just like other disk images.

This option is for when you plan to use Apple Software Restore or Disk Utility
to copy the contents of the disk image back to a hard drive. (See, for example,
the Making a Bootable Device Image of a Hard Drive section.) DropDMG performs
an extra pass over the disk image, rewriting the file to provide the best
performance when restoring.

Apple recommends that Mac applications be distributed on disk images that aresigned. The
signature allows the customer to verify that the downloaded disk image is
exactly as you created it, that it has not been maliciously modified, and that
it was created by a valid Mac developer registered with Apple’s Developer ID program. If the disk image is not
signed, an application stored on it will be subject to Gatekeeper Path
Randomization.

Secure signing requires access to Apple’s trusted timestamp server, so your Mac
must be connected to the Internet.

Signed Disk Images

To have DropDMG sign your disk image, select the appropriate signing identity
from the Signing pop-up menu in the Configurations preferences. This is
probably one whose name begins with Developer ID Application. In the event
that you have multiple identities with the same name, DropDMG will show a
tooltip that shows the SHA1 hash for the identity.

Signed disk images can be created on macOS 10.11.5 and later (and mounted on
earlier versions). macOS 10.12 and later automatically verify the signature when
mounting a disk image. Only read-only disk images in .dmg format can be
signed.

Verifying a Signature

You can verify the signature of a disk image or archive, and see who signed it,
using the Verify Signature… command.

“Detritus” Errors

Creating a signed disk image on macOS 10.12 or later may fail and report this
error:

resource fork, Finder information, or similar detritus not allowed

This means that one or more of the files that you asked DropDMG to copy to the
disk image contained extended attributes (xattrs), which macOS signing disallows
for security reasons. In most cases, the xattrs are not actually needed, so you
can simply remove them.

You can choose to have disk images created in the same folder as the source
folder (Next to Source), or specify a folder where images should be saved
(by choosing Other… or dragging a folder onto the preferences window). The
Ask Later option causes DropDMG to ask you, for each operation, where to
save the disk image or archive.

If the destination folder that you specify ends up being invalid (e.g. you
specify a destination folder that’s contained by the source folder), DropDMG
will revert to its default behavior of Next to Source.

The bottom portion of the pop-up menu lists recent folders and
favorite folders. Recent folders are the last 10 folders that you’ve
chosen. Favorite folders are always shown in the menu, even if you have
not used them recently. To make a recent folder into a favorite folder,
find the folder’s alias in the folder:

This option controls the names of the output disk image or archive and also the
mounted disk image volume.

Automatic

DropDMG chooses the filename and volume name based on the name of the
source.

Ask

DropDMG asks you to enter the name of the image file it will create and the
name of the volume that will appear on the desktop when you mount the image.
DropDMG will automatically add the proper filename extension to the
filename. It may also truncate the names you enter if they would be too long
for the Mac’s volume and filename limits.

Note: The volume name is not settable when creating a device image,
although you can use the CreateDeviceImagesesoteric preference to
tell DropDMG not to create device images.

Three additional options are available:

Append current date

Add the current date (in YYYY-MM-DD format) to the end of the filename
and volume name. This option is ignored when creating a disk image by
converting.

Append version number

When imaging an application or installer package (or a folder containing an
application or package), add its version number to the end of the filename
and volume name. This option is ignored when creating a disk image by
converting.

Sanitize for servers

Process the name of the output file so that it does not contain any spaces,
accented or foreign characters, or certain punctuation marks. This makes it
possible to upload it to a Web or FTP server and then access it using a URL
that contains no percent escape sequences.

If you select one of these options, DropDMG will move the source folder, image,
or archive to the trash after it has finished making the disk image. If an error
occurs while creating the output file, DropDMG leaves the source untouched.

Disk images can include license agreements (also known as
End-User License Agreements or EULAs), which are displayed to the user whenever
the disk image is mounted. The contents of the disk image will only be
accessible if the user accepts the terms of your license. DropDMG lets you
define multiple license agreements ahead of time. Each agreement may be
localized into multiple languages. You can choose which agreement (if any) to
include with each disk image.

The Font menu and the Fonts and Colors buttons allow you to
customize the appearance of your license. License agreements can use
multiple fonts, sizes, and styles of text.

You can also edit the license text in another application such as TextEdit.
To do this, double-click the language in the source list or drag it onto the
TextEdit icon in the Dock. This can be useful if you want to see multiple
languages side-by-side in different windows. (When using TextEdit, do not
paste in any graphics, as this would convert the file from RTF format to
RTFD; DropDMG and disk images only support RTF.)

Note: Beware of using fonts that are not built into macOS, for the
license agreement will look different if the user does not have the fonts
installed. Secondly, note that “synthetic” font traits will not be
preserved. A synthetic trait is a style for which you do not have a font.
For instance, macOS ships with normal and bold variants of Lucida. Both
of these work fine in license agreements. DropDMG will also let you create a
license agreement using italic Lucida, where the operating system
synthesizes Lucida Italic from regular Lucida, but the italic style will not
be displayed to the end user.

Buttons

This lets you customize the names of the Print, Save…, Disagree,
and Agree buttons.

Sharing Licenses

DropDMG automatically saves the licenses that you create. You can also create
copies of the licenses outside DropDMG, as described in the Sharing Licenses
and Layouts section.

Limitations

macOS only supports license agreements for disk images, not burned discs. If
you want a license agreement on a CD or DVD, put your license on a .dmg and
then burn the .dmg to disk as a file or by putting the .dmg in a folder as
described in Burning a CD or DVD-ROM With a Custom Icon.

Due to limitations of the .dmg format, images containing an extremely large
number of files cannot have license agreements.

When you double-click a disk image, macOS mounts it and opens a Finder window
showing its top-level contents. Layouts let you control the appearance of this
window: the window position, background picture, view options, and icon
positions. Additionally, when you create a disk image with a layout, DropDMG
sets it to automatically open the window when mounting the image or inserting a
disc burned from the image.

Note: The files/folders that you add to a layout are only used for the
purposes of designing the layout, i.e. specifying where each icon goes. The
actual contents of the disk image are determined by the source folder that you
drag onto DropDMG. Normally, you would add an icon to the layout for each file
that will be in your source folder. However, a layout can have more files than
the source folder, in which case you can reuse that layout for different
purposes. A layout can also have fewer files than the source folder, in which
case DropDMG will leave the icon positions of the extra files unspecified.

Use the + button to create a new layout and the - button or the Delete
key to remove one. Several commands are available in the action menu and
contextual menu:

Duplicate Layout

Create a new layout that matches the selected one.

Rename Layout

Change the name of the selected layout. You can also click-and-hold on the
name or press the Return or Enter key.

DropDMG automatically saves the layouts that you create, as you edit them. You
can also create copies of the layouts outside DropDMG, as described in the
Sharing Licenses and Layouts section.

Window position

This controls the position of the upper left corner of the window, relative
to the upper left corner of the user’s main display (i.e. the Apple menu).

Background image

Set the background image by dragging an image file onto the well or by
clicking the Choose… button. The background image determines the size of
the layout. If you do not specify a background image, DropDMG uses a plain
white background with dimensions 640×480.

The background image can be a 72 or 144dpi image, a PDF file, or a
multi-resolution TIFF file. DropDMG will render a multi-resolution
background picture that’s optimized for display on both Retina and
non-Retina Macs. DropDMG looks at the background image’s actual resolution
(dots per inch) to determine whether to treat it as Retina; it does not,
e.g., look for @2x in the filename.

Here are some things to consider when choosing the size of your background
image:

It is recommended that you design your background image such that it
looks good if the bottom 23 points are hidden. This is because the
Finder does not allow the disk image to control whether the window’s
path bar is shown, and the bar consumes space that would otherwise be
available for the window’s content. DropDMG sets the window size such
that, if the user has the path bar turned off, the Finder will show
the full background image; if the bar is turned on, the Finder will
show all but the bottom 23 points.

It is recommended that you design your background image such that it
looks good if the rightmost 1 point is hidden. This is because
DropDMG sizes the mounted disk image window to exactly fit the
dimensions of the background image. On macOS 10.7, you will see
every pixel of the image. macOS 10.8 through 10.10 draw a 1-point
vertical line at the left edge of the window, thus shifting the image
to the right, so that the rightmost column is scrolled out of view.
Because different versions of the OS display background images in
different ways, it is impossible to choose a window size that always
looks optimal. DropDMG decides that it is better to hide a column of
pixels that most people won’t notice missing than to show an extra
column of white pixels that stand out as looking wrong.

macOS imposes a minimum window width, so choose a background image
that’s at least 437 points wide in order to avoid a white bar on the
right side of the window.

Text boxes

Click Add Text to create text boxes that are drawn atop the background
image. Click once on a text box to resize it. Double-click to edit its
contents. After selecting some text, you can use the Fonts panel to set
the font, style, color, and shadow. The ruler lets save favorite styles and
adjust the spacing and alignment (left, center, full, or right) of the text.

The Variables pop-down menu lets you add placeholders that DropDMG will
fill in when you build the disk image, so that you don’t have to manually
update the text in your layout. The supported variables are Application
Name (e.g. DropDMG), Application Short Version String (the
marketing version from CFBundleShortVersionString), Application
Version (the build number from CFBundleVersion), and Date
(YYYY-MM-DD) (e.g. the date the disk image was created).

Icon positions

To add an icon to the layout, drag and drop a file or folder or click the
Add Icon… button.

Click the Application Placeholder button to add a special icon to your
layout called ${APP_BASENAME}.app. This will set the position of
whichever application (or other principal file) is in your source folder,
letting you use the same layout to create disk images for multiple applications.

Click the Application Folder button to create a link to the
Applications folder. This makes it possible to install an application by
dragging its icon onto the Applications icon in the same window. When
you create a disk image using the layout, DropDMG will automatically add a
symlink to the Applications folder. (This option is not recommended for
use with Internet-enabled disk images.)

You can drag and drop to rearrange the icons. By default, DropDMG uses a
16×16 grid so that the icons are aligned with one another. To drag an icon
to any position, unconstrained by the grid, hold down the Command key. You
can also move the selected icons one point at a time by pressing the arrow
keys.

Icon size

The icons can be displayed at 16×16, 32×32, 48×48, 64×64, 96×96, 128×128,
256×256, or 512×512.

With the macOS 10.6 Finder, Apple changed the file format that it
uses to save a folder’s view options. Previous versions of macOS do not know
how to fully read the new format. This means that disk images created on macOS
10.6 (using either the Finder or DropDMG) may not appear exactly as intended
when using macOS 10.4 or 10.5. To deploy a disk image for previous versions of
macOS, you may wish to create the disk image using DropDMG on macOS 10.5. Another option is to
create a read-write disk image, manually tweak its view options on macOS
10.5, and then use DropDMG to convert it to a final format.

When DropDMG is creating or converting a disk image, it uses the options
specified in the current configuration. If you want to use slightly different
options, you could go to the Configurations preferences, duplicate the
configuration, change it, make your image, and then delete the configuration.
However, it’s much easier to use temporary options. This lets you start with a
configuration, make some one-off changes, and then create your disk image
without altering any of the saved configurations.

Show if Option key is down

Select this option if you normally want to use the saved configurations,
using temporary options only when you drag a folder onto DropDMG while
pressing the Option key.

Show unless Option key is down

Select this option if you usually make different types of disk images each
time. DropDMG will always bring up the temporary options window, unless
you’re pressing the Option key.

You can also use the DropDMG: Ask for Options command in the Services
menu to create a disk image using temporary options.

Normally, if DropDMG does not have the privileges that it needs in order to
create a disk image or archive, it will prompt you to authenticate by entering
an administrator password. This authentication lasts for a few minutes, or until
you quit DropDMG (whichever happens first).

If Always run with root access is checked, DropDMG will retain administrator
access—even between launches. This saves you from the trouble of having to keep
entering your password, and it makes it easier to run DropDMG unattended (for
example, as part of an automated, scheduled backup). However, this is a
potential security risk. Anyone with access to your copy of DropDMG will be
able to access and modify any file on your Mac.

Note: In order to use Always run with root access, the DropDMG application
must be installed on your Mac’s startup volume.

If you purchased DropDMG from Apple’s Mac App Store

In order to create a disk image or archive from certain files, DropDMG will
need root access. You can give DropDMG this access by opening the Terminal
application and entering these commands:

It will ask for your administrator password. This is a potential security
risk. Anyone with access to your copy of DropDMG will be able to access and
modify any file on your Mac. You can remove the root access by entering these
commands in Terminal:

With this option checked, DropDMG will only require free disk space on the
destination volume equal to the size of the final disk image file. This can make
disk image creation much slower, however. Additionally, when creating an
encrypted disk image, all data written to the destination volume will be
encrypted.

With this option unchecked, disk image creation will generally be much faster
(and the final compressed disk image file may be slightly smaller), however
DropDMG may require working space on the destination volume of up to twice the
size of the source folder. When creating an encrypted disk image, the final disk
image file will be encrypted, however temporary files will not. Thus, if you
plan to distribute the destination hard drive itself (rather than just the final
.dmg file), you should use Disk Utility to Erase Free Space securely.

Leaving Use less temporary disk space unchecked is generally the best
choice, unless there is little free space on the destination volume.

If Quit when done is checked, DropDMG will quit itself when there are no
more imaging or burning operations in progress. This means, for example, that
you can drop a folder onto DropDMG, and it will launch, do its work, and then
quit.

You can delete individual log entries by selecting them in the DropDMG window
and pressing delete. Use Edit ‣ Select All to quickly clear the log.

The pop-up menu lets you set DropDMG to automatically delete old log entries
When DropDMG quits, After one day, After one week, After two
weeks, After one month, or After one year. If you set it to
Manually, DropDMG will keep the log entries forever (unless you delete
them).

DropDMG has a command-line tool called dropdmg that can create disk images
and archives and burn CDs and DVDs. This lets you control DropDMG from Terminal
and automate it via shell scripts.

To install the command-line tool, click the Install “dropdmg” Tool button in
the Advanced section of the Preferences window. Once installed, DropDMG
will automatically offer to update the tool when a new version is available.

The dropdmg tool is not a freestanding utility. Rather, it controls the
DropDMG application, which it will launch as needed. You must be logged into the
Mac with a regular user session (not just via SSH).

Xcode Server

DropDMG is compatible with the Xcode Server
build environment. Despite the fact that you can’t see the login session for
the _xcsbuildd user, Xcode Server does run your build scripts and UI tests
in a graphical macOS user environment. This means that DropDMG can run and
that it can talk to the Finder to build disk images with layouts.

Because the _xcsbuildd session is hidden, you cannot interact with it
directly. However, you can control DropDMG from an Xcode shell script build
phase using the dropdmg command-line tool. You can use the
--layout-folder and --license-folder switches to specify the layout and
license that are stored in your source control repository.

Additionally, you can use these shell commands to personalize DropDMG, tell it
not to show software update alerts, and tell it to quit after processing each
dropdmg command (so that it’s not visible in UI test screenshots):

You can set esoteric DropDMG preferences by clicking the links on this page.
Unlike with regular preferences, you must generally quit and re-launch DropDMG
in order for an esoteric preference to take effect.

AppendDateWithSeconds

When using the Append current date option, DropDMG usually uses the
YYYY-MM-DD format.
You can also set it to use the YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS format. This is
useful if you will be creating more than one dated disk image on the same
day and you want the files to have unique names.

BlankBackgroundSize

When creating a disk image with a layout, DropDMG normally sets the size of
the mounted image window to the size of the background picture. If you don’t
specify a background picture, it uses 640×480. You can also
set it to use 800×600.

CreateDeviceImages

DropDMG normally detects when you are trying to make a disk image of a
volume and creates a device image. Device images are exact
copies, and creating them is faster. You may, however, prefer that DropDMG
create regular disk images of volumes, as this will
give you control over the volume name.

DisableRetinaBackgroundPictures

Normally DropDMG creates background pictures for your layouts that are
optimized for Macs with both Retina and non-Retina displays.
macOS 10.6 has a bug that prevents proper display of Retina background
pictures (regardless of the Mac’s display type). Thus, for optimal
deployment on 10.6 you can optionally set DropDMG to only create non-Retina background
pictures.

HybridFSArgs

When creating a .iso disk image, DropDMG normally includes a hybrid
filesystem with HFS+, ISO 9660, Joliet, and UDF components. You can
change which filesystems are included by entering this command in Terminal
and removing the names of filesystems that you don’t want:

When creating disk images using the .dmg — smaller file, faster option,
DropDMG normally uses the maximum level of compression to produce a smaller disk image.
You can instead set DropDMG to faster compression. On some systems this will be
almost twice as fast, but the .dmg files will be larger.

A common misconception is that a DropDMG layout is like a document that stores a
recipe for how to build your disk image. With that line of thinking, adding a
file to your layout should cause that file to be copied to the disk image
whenever that layout is used. However, this is not how DropDMG works.

Instead, the content and presentation of your disk image are specified
separately. The layout controls the presentation. When you add a file to the
layout, this creates an icon that you can drag around so that DropDMG knows
where to position it in the mounted disk image window. Adding a file does not
create a reference to that file or tell DropDMG to copy the file when creating
the disk image. All it does is tell DropDMG where to put the icon for a file
with that name. Because only the name matters, you do not have to re-add a
source file to your layout if you move the file or modify its content.

The contents of the disk image are always determined by the source folder
that you drag onto DropDMG (or pass it via script). So, to add a file to your
disk image, you need to add it to the source folder. The source folder can have
more or fewer files than are mentioned in your layout. You can also use
different source folders with the same layout.

This separation between content and presentation lets you create different looks
for disk images with the same contents, for example beta versus release versions
of a software product. It also lets you use placeholders and variables to
apply the same layout to multiple disk images that have different content, for
example multiple products from the same company.

Some Web servers have trouble handling plain .dmg files, because
they don’t know what kind of file they are. When people download the
.dmg file, it can open in the Web browser instead of mounting
automatically. Or, with a bzip2-compressed image, Safari will change the
file extension from .dmg to .dmg.bz2, which causes the OS to
think the file is damaged. In order to prevent these problems, make sure
that your Web server uses the correct MIME type for .dmg files. If
you administer an Apache-based server, you can ensure this by adding
this line:

You need to enter the serial name and serial number exactly as they appear
on your order confirmation e-mail. If you no longer have this e-mail, you can
look up the name and number. Launch DropDMG and choose Purchase from
the DropDMG menu. Then click the Look Up My Serial Number button.

No. We only recommend downloading DropDMG from https://c-command.com and
from reputable download sites such as Apple and MacUpdate. The C-Command Store lists all the vendors that are authorized to
sell DropDMG. Downloads from other sites may include adware or viruses.

are not authorized to distribute our software. They have been a source of
confusion
because they often appear in ads at the top of search results for Bing,
DuckDuckGo, and Yahoo. We do not recommend downloading from these sites. In
many cases, they will say that they are offering an “official” copy of
DropDMG that is anything but. In fact, the installer asks for your
administrator password, installs adware, and makes other changes that may damage
your Mac.

CNET’s Download.com offers a Direct Download Link, which is valid; however it
also offers a more prominent Download Now Installer Enabled link, which we
do not recommend. The CNET installer installs toolbar adware and changes browser
settings. This page
explains how you can remove the toolbar.

The user library folder is stored at the path /Users/<username>/Library/.
The way to access it is different depending on which version of macOS you are
using:

macOS 10.12.3 and Later

The Library folder is hidden by default. To open it, click on Finder in the
Dock. Click on the Go menu at the top of the screen, hold down the Option
and Shift keys, and then choose Library. (Only one of Option and Shift is
needed, but due to an OS bug,
which one you need to hold down can vary. Thus, it is easier to hold down both.)

Another way to access the Library folder is to choose Home from the
Go menu, then type Command-Shift-Period to show invisible files, and then open the
Library folder.

Mac OS X 10.7 Through 10.12.2

The Library folder is hidden by default. To open it, click on Finder in the
Dock. Click on the Go menu at the top of the screen, hold down the Option
key, and then choose Library.

Another option is to go to your home folder, choose View ‣ Show View Options
and then make sure that Show Library Folder is checked.

Mac OS X 10.6

Click on Finder in the Dock, click on the Go menu, and choose Home. This
will show your home folder, and you can open the Library folder directly.

To take a screenshot, hold down the Command and Shift keys and press the number 4.
Then use the mouse to select the area of the screen that you want to take a
picture of. This will create a file called ScreenShot<date>at<time>.png
on your desktop. Pressing the keys again will create ScreenShot<date>at<newtime>.png, etc.

You can also take screenshots using the File ‣ Take Screenshot command in
the Preview application.

To send in screeenshots, drag the files into your e-mail window to attach them
to your message. If you’re using Apple Mail, be sure to set the Image Size
pop-up menu at the bottom of the message window to Actual Size.

If DropDMG itself crashes, the DropDMG Crash Reporter window should
automatically come up. Make sure that you enter a valid e-mail address and then
click the Send Report button.

If your mail program (or a helper process such as hdiutil) crashes,
you’ll need to send in the crash log file manually.

Crash logs are stored in the folder:

/Users/<username>/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/

On Mac OS X 10.7 through macOS 10.12, first click on the Finder in the
Dock, then click on the Go menu, and hold down the Option key as you
choose Library. Open the Logs folder, then DiagnosticReports.

On Mac OS X 10.6, first click on the Finder in the Dock, then click on the
Go menu, and choose Home. Open the Library folder. Then open the
Logs folder, then DiagnosticReports.

Once you’ve opened the DiagnosticReports folder, find the most recent crash
log file for the program that crashed and add it to your e-mail message to
dropdmg@c-command.com as an attachment.

If the problem pertains to a particular configuration, license, or layout,
please send it in via e-mail so that we can try to isolate what is causing the
problem. You can drag and drop from the configuration/license/layout list to
export the information as a file or folder. Select it in the Finder and choose
File ‣ Compress. This will create a ZIP archive that you can attach to your
e-mail.

If a program is slow, hangs (e.g. with a spinning beachball), or freezes, a
“sample” report can record what your Mac was doing in order to locate the source
of the problem.

Click on Finder in the Dock.

From the Go menu, choose Utilities.

Double-click the Activity Monitor program.

Select DropDMG in the Activity Monitor window.

Do whatever it is in DropDMG that causes the slowness, hang, or freeze.
Immediately, click on Activity Monitor in the Dock and choose Sample
Process from the View menu.

After Activity Monitor has finished taking the sample, click the
Save… button in the “Sample of DropDMG” window. Save the file
to your desktop and then include it in your e-mail message to
dropdmg@c-command.com as an attachment. (Please do not copy and paste the text
from the Activity Monitor window.)

DropDMG is a trademark of C-Command Software, LLC. Mac is a registered
trademark of Apple Computer. All other products mentioned are trademarks
of their respective owners.

End User License Agreement

CAREFULLY READ THE FOLLOWING LICENSE AGREEMENT. YOU ACCEPT AND AGREE TO BE BOUND
BY THIS LICENSE AGREEMENT BY DOWNLOADING AND INSTALLING THE PROGRAM. IF YOU DO
NOT AGREE TO THIS LICENSE, THEN DO NOT DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THE PROGRAM, AND
REMOVE THE SOFTWARE FROM YOUR COMPUTER.

License Grant

“You” means the person or company who is being licensed to use the Software or
Documentation. “We,” “us” and “our” means C-Command Software, LLC.

We hereby grant you a nonexclusive license to use one copy of the Software on
any single computer, or on multiple computers only used by a single person. The
Software is “in use” on a computer when it is loaded into temporary memory (RAM)
or installed into the permanent memory of a computer—for example, a hard disk or
other storage device.

Title

We remain the owner of all right, title and interest in the Software and related
explanatory written materials (“Documentation”).

Archival or Backup Copies

You may copy the Software for backup and archival purposes, provided that the
original and each copy is kept in your possession and that your installation and
use of the Software does not exceed that allowed in the “License Grant” section
above.

Things You May Not Do

The Software and Documentation are protected by United States copyright laws and
international treaties. You must treat the Software and Documentation like any
other copyrighted material—for example, a book. You may not:

copy the Documentation,

copy the Software except to make archival or backup copies as provided
above,

sublicense, rent, lease or lend any portion of the Software or
Documentation.

Transfers

You may transfer all your rights to use the Software and Documentation to
another person or legal entity provided you transfer this Agreement, the
Software and Documentation, including all copies, updates and prior versions to
such person or entity and that you retain no copies, including copies stored on
computer.

Limited Warranty

The software is provided “as is,” without warranty of any kind, express or
implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness
for a particular purpose and noninfringement. In no event shall the authors or
copyright holders be liable for any claim, damages or other liability, whether
in an action of contract, tort or otherwise, arising from, out of or in
connection with the software or the use or other dealings in the software. No
employee, agent, dealer or distributor of ours is authorized to modify this
limited warranty, nor to make any additional warranties.

Term and Termination

This license agreement takes effect upon your use of the software and remains
effective until terminated. You may terminate it at any time by destroying all
copies of the Software and Documentation in your possession. It will also
automatically terminate if you fail to comply with any term or condition of this
license agreement. You agree on termination of this license to destroy all
copies of the Software and Documentation in your possession.

General Provisions

This written license agreement is the exclusive agreement between you and
us concerning the Software and Documentation and supersedes any prior
purchase order, communication, advertising or representation concerning
the Software.

This license agreement may be modified only by a writing signed by you
and us.

This license agreement is governed by the laws of the State of New
Hampshire.

You agree that the Software will not be shipped, transferred or exported
into any country or used in any manner prohibited by the United States
Export Administration Act or any other export laws, restrictions or
regulations.

Components

The following open-source components are used in DropDMG:

Regular expression support is provided by the PCRE library package, which is open
source software, written by Philip Hazel, and copyright by
the University of Cambridge, England.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

Neither the name of Growl nor the names of its contributors
may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS
IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER
OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL,
EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING
NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Thanks to Allan Odgaard for some code snippets that are used
in the Software Update installer.

DropDMG is now compatible with beta versions of macOS 10.13 High
Sierra. In particular, there were a bunch of changes to APFS that
prevented previous versions of DropDMG from working properly.

Made some changes to the New Blank Disk Image… interface and
documentation to reflect the current status of APFS.

Worked around some bugs in macOS 10.13 that could cause errors when
creating a disk image with a layout. It is possible that the window’s
status bar and toolbar will not be correctly hidden, but at least now
you can create images.

The New Blank Disk Image… command now supports case-insensitive
APFS (requires macOS 10.12.4 or later). This can be used for testing
Mac apps on a file system that is Unicode normalization-preserving,
but not normalization-sensitive.

The Save Diagnostic Report… command in the Help menu now
works with all versions of macOS that DropDMG supports.

Made the task code more robust.

Made various internal code modernizations.

Documentation and Help menu links to c-command.com now use
https instead of http.

Updated the Japanese localization.

3.4.5—January 10, 2017

Worked around a bug in macOS 10.12.2 that caused a garbage character
to be displayed in various pop-up menus.

DropDMG no longer posts to Notification Center for operations that
complete less than a minute after being queued. This should help make
sure that the banners/alerts that you do see are genuinely useful.

Made some changes to reduce the time it takes to open the
Preferences window.

Logging is more robust on macOS 10.12.

Updated the German localization.

3.4.4—December 9, 2016

Fixed a regression that could cause a crash when creating a disk
image with a layout on Mac OS X 10.10 or earlier.

Fixed a regression where the System Fonts pop-up menu didn’t
work.

The new Save Diagnostic Report… command in the Help menu
provides an easier way of recording error logs and other information
to send to technical support (requires macOS 10.12).

Worked around a change in the macOS 10.12 Finder that could cause
icons to be displayed in the wrong locations if you had enabled the
hidden AppleShowAllFiles Finder preference.

Worked around a badly worded OS certificate error when checking for a
software update.

Improved DropDMG’s logging of Scripting Bridge errors.

Made some changes to prevent Core Data from logging internal errors
on macOS 10.12.

3.4.2—September 19, 2016

Removed support for creating .xip archives because macOS 10.12
can no longer expand .xip files not created by Apple. DropDMG
will change configurations using .xip to .zip. Going forward,
Apple recommends using signed.dmg files.

Added support for creating disk images that are signed for
Gatekeeper, as Apple now recommends that Mac applications be
distributed on signed disk images (requires Mac OS X 10.11.5 or
later). Unsigned disk images are subject to Gatekeeper Path
Randomization. This is described in the Signing section of the
manual.

Added support for the .xip archive format, which lets you
create secure archives that are signed for Gatekeeper (requires Mac
OS X 10.8 or later).

Added the Verify Signature… command for checking disk images and
.xip archives to make sure they are correctly signed (requires
Mac OS X 10.11.5 or later).

The New Blank Disk Image… command now lets you choose the File
System, which can be any variant of HFS+ as well as Apple File
System (APFS), Apple’s experimental next-generation file system for
2017. This feature is particularly useful for developers who want to
test that their apps work properly on each file system.

On macOS 10.12, DropDMG no longer shows its Select Next Tab
and Select Previous Tab menu items because they duplicate the new
system ones.

Made various code modernizations.

If getting authorization fails, DropDMG now reports the command that
it was attempting to execute.

Improved the error messages when the Finder doesn’t save the proper
window bounds for the mounted disk image.

If the LayouterCheckViewOptions esoteric preference is set,
DropDMG will now check that the icon size, text size, and background
picture were correctly saved into the view options (retrying if
necessary). This can work around a rare bug that was reported in Mac
OS X 10.11.

Fixed a bug where Mac App Store receipt validation used the current
date rather than the receipt creation date.

Fixed a regression (caused by an Xcode update) where various dialogs
and sheets did not show the lock icon to indicate that a passphrase
was set.

Fixed the size of the distribution disk image window.

Updated code for Xcode 7.2.

DropDMG is now localized in Simplified Chinese.

We need some help localizing DropDMG. If you would like to help keep
DropDMG’s German localization up-to-date, please contact
dropdmg@c-command.com.

3.2.8—September 29, 2015

DropDMG is now fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

Added support for LZFSE-compressed disk
images, which are smaller than the standard zlib-compressed disk
images yet twice as fast to encode and three times as fast to decode
(requires Mac OS X 10.11).

When you’re editing a license or layout, DropDMG now adds a menu to
the Fonts panel for choosing the system font, since there is
otherwise no way of choosing San Francisco or the proper version of
Helvetica Neue to match the user interface.

Updated the Create OS X Install Disk instructions for Mac OS X
10.11.

It is now possible to enter segment sizes larger than 50 GB in the
Preferences window. (Previously, this was only possible via
script.)

Fixed a bug where Software Update… would continue offering updates
in the same session you had held down the Option key.

Removed inadvertent debug logging for the Append version number
feature.

Updated the French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish localizations.

3.2.7—June 3, 2015

If the Finder didn’t save the proper size for the mounted disk image
window, DropDMG will now automatically retry several times. (DropDMG
3.2.6 would abort with an error, and you would have to retry
manually.)

The Compact Image… command is now available in the contextual menu
in the log.

Improved error reporting when a temporary folder cannot be created.

If DropDMG detects that one of its files is missing, i.e. that
the application is damaged, it now presents a better error
message.

When the trial period is over, the alert now has a Help button
that opens the instructions for uninstalling.

Date formatters now use the POSIX local where appropriate.

3.2.6—January 26, 2015

In rare cases, Mac OS X 10.10 does not properly save the size of the
mounted disk image window. DropDMG can now detect when this happens
and report an error so that you do not inadvertently deploy a disk
image that doesn’t look right. Usually, simply creating the disk
image again will avoid the problem.

The Layouts section of the manual now describes a problem with the
rightmost 1 point of the background picture not being displayed in
the Finder. For maximum compatibility with different OS versions, it
is recommended that you design your background such that these pixels
are not critical.

Fixed a regression where the command-line tool did not accept
none for the encryption.

Fixed a bug where a change in system font meterics caused some text
in the Preferences window to be truncated.

Fixed a bug where DropDMG did not show Retina-resolution 515×512
icons in the Layouts window. (This did not affect the created
disk images.)

Fixed a bug where there Next to Source destination didn’t work in
the Mac App Store version of DropDMG.

Updated the Italian localization.

3.2.5—November 19, 2014

DropDMG now sets the Finder icon positions for invisible files, so
that if the user has the Finder set to show invisible files (e.g.
using AppleShowAllFiles) they do not cover up the background
picture or the icons in your disk image’s layout.

DropDMG now accepts background pictures with resolutions that are off
by a fraction of a dot per inch, as thats’s how some graphics
programs save them.

DropDMG can now be told to mount disk images via AppleScript. You can
control whether verification and file ownership are enabled, whether
a shadow file is used, and whether the disk image is mounted at a
custom location in the file system. For encrypted disk images, you
can specify the passphrase directly or tell DropDMG to load it from a
particular configuration in your keychain.

DropDMG now supports making the mounted disk image window smaller
than the background picture. The window is always anchored at the
top-left of the background picture but can be inset a certain number
of points from its bottom and right edges. There is currently no user
interface for setting the insets, but you can edit them by quitting
DropDMG and editing the windowInsets value in the layout’s
Info.plist file.

Modernized lots of code and removed old code that’s no longer needed
for compatibility with legacy OS versions.

DropDMG now uses power assertions to prevent App Nap from slowing
user-initiated operations when the window is in the background or
blocked by the screensaver.

Fixed a regression where the Preferences window wouldn’t open
when running in Japanese.

Updated the localizations.

We need help keeping DropDMG’s Italian and Japanese localizations
up-to-date. Please contact dropdmg@c-command.com if you’re
interested.

DropDMG now requires Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later.

DropDMG’s Automator action now requires Mac OS X 10.9 or later. This
is because Xcode has dropped support for Objective-C garbage
collection, but Mac OS X 10.8 and earlier only support garbage
collected Automator actions. If you need to use DropDMG and Automator
with Mac OS X 10.8 or earlier, you can run DropDMG 3.2.4.

3.2.4—January 28, 2014

DropDMG no longer posts errors to Notification Center. Instead, if
DropDMG is not frontmost, it will bounce the Dock icon to alert you
of an error.

Made some code signing changes for better compatibility with Mac OS X
10.9.

DropDMG is better at detecting errors when setting the background
picture and arranging the icons.

Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when using DropDMG’s Automator
action.

Fixed a bug that could cause an internal error when creating a hybrid
disk image if the layouts preferences were open.

Fixed a bug where DropDMG could report an error when converting a
disk image from .iso format to .dmg if the destination file
already existed.

Fixed a bug where DropDMG would use a stale version number
variable when you imaged an application, updated it (e.g. via the
Mac App Store), and then imaged it again in the same DropDMG session.

Automatic software updates no longer fail if Hazel is set to move
files in the Downloads folder.

Fixed a typo in the man page.

We need some help localizing DropDMG. If you would like to help keep
DropDMG’s French localization up-to-date, please contact
dropdmg@c-command.com.

3.2.2—May 3, 2013

It is now possible to set (or override) layout variables from
AppleScript or the command line. This is also useful when creating a
disk image of non-application files; DropDMG would be unable to
intuit the {$APP_BASENAME}, but you can still set it to whatever
you want in your script and have it rendered into the layout.

The HybridFSArgsesoteric preference lets you control which
filesystems DropDMG uses for hybrid .iso disk images.

Fixed a bug where sometimes creating a disk image failed if it
contained a very large number of small files.

Fixed a bug where .iso files would sometimes be owned by root
instead of the user.

Made various minor adjustments to the toolbar icons in the main
window.

Added Japanese localization.

3.2.1—January 25, 2013

Fixed a bug where DropDMG sometimes didn’t create large enough disk
images for files that were stored using HFS+ compression (e.g.
applications from the Mac App Store).

Fixed a bug where the log showed the source folder’s allocated size
rather than its logical size.

Fixed a bug creating a disk image with a layout that had text but no
background picture.

Fixed a bug that could cause DropDMG to create a device image with a
dirty HFS+ journal. If the disk image was read-only, it would not be
possible to mount the disk image. If you have such a disk image, you
can fix it by converting it to a read-write format. The journal will
then be replayed and saved in a clean state.

Fixed a bug where DropDMG could hang when using the contextual menu
in the log.

DropDMG’s user interface is now fully optimized for Macs with
Retina displays, as well as multi-display setups.

DropDMG now renders Retina-quality background images. The source
background picture can be a 72 or 144dpi image, a PDF file, or a
multi-resolution TIFF file. DropDMG will render a multi-resolution
background picture that’s optimized for display on both Retina and
non-Retina Macs.

Rather than adding an application icon to a layout, you now have
the option of adding an application icon placeholder. This
makes it easy to use the same layout to create disk images for
different applications.

Previously, you could add an Applications folder symlink to
layouts by dragging and dropping your Applications folder.
There’s now a dedicated button for adding the symlink, to make
the feature easier to use and more discoverable.

DropDMG can now create segmented ZIP archives (e.g. .z01,
.z02, .zip). Such archives cannot be expanded by Mac OS X’s
built-in Archive Utility, but there are free third-party
expansion utilities such as The Unarchiver.

Added the Append version number feature. When imaging or
archiving an application or installer, this option will add its
version number to the end of the filename.

Added support for Notification Center (requires OS X 10.8).

Added the Burn OS X Install DVD feature, an easier way to make
your own installer or emergency DVD.

Streamlined disk image creation by no longer optimizing images
for restore that don’t need such optimization.

Added the ZlibLevelesoteric preference, which lets you
set DropDMG to create .dmg files more quickly but with less
compression.

Added the DisableRetinaBackgroundPicturesesoteric
preference, which lets you create non-Retina background
pictures in order to work around a bug in Mac OS X 10.6.

Other Improvements

DropDMG now tells the system that it can use the integrated GPU,
which should reduce battery use on newer MacBook Pros.

You can now remove the background image from a layout using the
contextual menu on the image view.

Fixed a bug where the Add Icon… button didn’t constrain new
icons to the grid.

Fixed a bug where the Add Icon… button didn’t let you add
folder icons to a layout.

Fixed a bug that could cause a crash if there was an internal
error launching a helper tool.

3.1—October 4, 2011

DropDMG is much faster at creating large disk images under most
circumstances, and it now compresses disk images a bit more
tightly. Added the Use less temporary disk space preference,
so that you can make DropDMG operate in the older, slower mode
if your destination volume is running out of space.

Disk image layouts can now contain text boxes, with your choice
of fonts, styles, colors, and shadows. Thus, it’s no longer
necessary to fire up a graphics program to update the text in
your background picture.

Layout text boxes can contain placeholder variables, which
DropDMG will replace when creating the disk image. For example,
if your disk image contains an application (e.g.
DropDMG.app), the text ${APP_SHORT_VERSION_STRING} will
be replaced by the marketing version of the application (e.g.
3.1).

The Mount Image… command now has a Shadow file option
that lets you mount a read-only disk image as read-write. Any
changes made to the mounted image will be written to the
adjacent shadow file. This can be useful, e.g. if you want to
use Spotlight to search a read-only disk image.

Added a CreateDeviceImagesesoteric preference, which
lets you create regular disk images instead of device images
when dragging a volume onto DropDMG. This is slower but gives
the option of setting a custom volume name.

Fixed a bug where DropDMG truncated the suggested volume and
base names when using the Ask option.

Fixed a bug in the layout editor where retracting a marquee
selection left the icons still selected.

When displaying an internal error, DropDMG now cleans it up and
presents an abbreviated version to ensure that the window fits
on screen. (The full error information is still included when
you click the Send E-mail button.)

Worked around an OS bug that could prevent DropDMG from being
able to open its Preferences window.

Tried to work around a problem where the software updater
sometimes didn’t ask for the permissions it needed to complete
an update.

Updated the disk image layout.

3.0.1—July 14, 2010

If you try to enter a serial number for DropDMG 2.x, rather than
just complaining that it’s invalid, DropDMG now uses it to help
you get a discounted or free upgrade and a 3.x serial number.

Fixed a bug where creating a disk image from the Finder’s
contextual menu or keyboard shortcut sometimes didn’t work.

The manual now recommends leaving space in a layout’s background
picture for the Finder window’s path bar.

Updated the tooltips in the configuration options.

Updated the localizations.

3.0—June 29, 2010

DropDMG is $24 for new users, $12 for previous DropDMG owners, and free for
people who bought DropDMG 2.x on or after June 20, 2008. There’s a 30-day
fully-featured trial for new users and upgraders.

Highlights

The user interface and disk imaging engine have been almost
completely redesigned and rewritten to make DropDMG easier
to use and more robust.

The Layouts feature gives developers a WYSIWYG editor to
set the background picture, view options, and icon
positions, making it easy to deploy Mac software to their
users.

The New Blank Disk Image… command lets you protect select
folders using the same encryption technology as FileVault
but without its drawbacks.

Added support for the .sparsebundle, .sparseimage,
and hybrid (.iso) disk image formats.

The DropDMG window now has a customizable toolbar for
quick access to commonly used commands.

The Activity window consolidates progress information
into a single window, rather than having separate windows
for each operation. Additionally, DropDMG now has progress
bars for bulk operations, so that you can see the overall
progress (e.g. folder 6 of 10) in addition to the progress
for the current operations.

The Verify Image… command now works in the background and
can verify a whole folder of disk images at once. You can
also bulk-verify multiple encrypted disk images without
having to keep re-entering the passphrase.

The Mount Image… command now works in the background and
can mount multiple disk images at once. You can also
bulk-mount encrypted disk images that share the same
passphrase.

Added the Change Image Passphrase… command, which makes
it much faster to change the passphrase of an encrypted disk
image.

The Join Files… command lets you recombine files that
have been split into .001, .002, etc. files.

The destination and names prompts have been combined into a
single dialog.

If the chosen destination folder is not available (e.g.
because its volume is offline) DropDMG now displays a
caution icon in the pop-up menu and will report an error
during the operation, rather than silently changing to
Next to Source.

When choosing a configuration in the DropDMG window or
from the Dock menu, you can hold down the Option key to open
the configuration for editing.

Configurations are now stored as individual .plist
files, rather than in DropDMG’s preferences file, so it’s
easier to exchange them with other users and they work
better with Time Machine.

Other types of operations can now run while DropDMG is
waiting for a blank optical disc to be inserted.

Improved the queuing of bulk operations to reduce disk
contention and increase performance.

DropDMG now runs as a 64-bit application under Mac OS X
10.6.

Log

The DropDMG window now has a drawer that shows detailed
information about the selected log entry.

You can Control-click on log entries to perform operations
on their files.

Log entries are now posted as Growl
notifications. If an operation has succeeded, clicking on
the Growl notification will reveal the destination file in
the Finder (or Path Finder). If the operation has
failed, clicking on the notification reveals the log entry
in DropDMG.

The Remove log entries preference lets you set DropDMG to
auto-delete old log entries after a specified amount of time.

It is now possible to delete individual log entries manually.

The log is now displayed as a table rather than a block of text.

The log can now be set to only show errors.

The log is now stored as a Core Data database rather than in
DropDMG’s preferences file. This makes reading and updating
it faster and reduces DropDMG’s memory usage.

License Agreements

The separate windows for the license agreements list and the
language editors have been combined into the new Licenses
tab of the Preferences window. The steps for making a new
localized license are much clearer now.

Licenses can now customize the prompt text and button names
that are presented to the end-user.

License agreements are now stored as individual files,
rather than in DropDMG’s preferences file. This allows for
sharing, storing them under version control, editing using
external applications, and better Time Machine backups.

Added Spelling and Grammar, Substitutions, and
Transformations to the Edit menu, and also added
menu commands for finding and replacing.

You can hold down the Option key when choosing a license in
the Configurations tab to open it for editing.

The license agreement editor now localizes the display of
the language names.

Miscellaneous

You can now choose whether DropDMG shows temporary
options by default or only when you hold down the Option
key.

The Get Image Info… command now displays the information
in an outline rather than a block of text.

Custom badged icons for the mounted disk image volume
are of much higher quality. The icon is now rendered at up
to 512x512 pixels, and there’s a separate optimized version
for each size (rather than scaling down the full-size
rendering).

The dropdmg command-line tool now has a man page.

File and segment sizes are now displayed using base 10
megabytes, for consistency with the Mac OS X 10.6 Finder.

Remembers between launches which windows were open.

DropDMG now auto-updates its command-line tool when you
first launch a new version of the application.

The Encoding option has been removed, since it’s no
longer particularly useful to create BinHex- or
MacBinary-encoded disk images.

Removed support for creating self-mounting .smi NDIF
disk images, since all recent versions of the OS have
built-in support for disk images.

Removed the keyboard shortcut for DropDMG’s command in the
Services menu, since Command-Shift-D was appropriated by
the OS. You can use the Keyboard pane of System
Preferences to assign your own shortcut, if desired.

Removed the option for making disk images auto-open. This is
no longer necessary since Mac OS X can now auto-open disk
images that do not have this option set, and this makes disk
image creation much faster.

Removed the contextual menu and Dock menu items for changing
image formats. This functionality is superseded by
configurations.

Removed support for creating and converting StuffIt
archives.

Removed support for creating ADC-compressed disk images.
Zlib-compressed images are more efficient, and, due to other
changes in Mac OS X’s disk imaging engine, ADC images no
longer provided any compatibility benefits.

Removed the Fix Image… command, since Mac OS X will now
mount disk images regardless of whether they have the
correct type and creator codes. The Control-drag shortcut
has been reassigned to the Verify Image… command.

2.8.6—September 4, 2009

The Use custom icon for mounted image feature now works with
Mac OS X 10.6.

Fixed bug where certain disk images of application files
created on Mac OS X 10.5.2 would mount on 10.3, but the
Finder would refuse to open them. (The contents were
intact and accessible from other applications.)

2.8.4—January 21, 2008

Fixed a regression in version 2.8.3 where DropDMG would
delete the source file/folder if you were creating a
segmented disk image next to the source and there was not
enough disk space.

2.8.3—January 8, 2008

Fixed bug where a .dmg file would not mount on Mac OS
X 10.3 and earlier if you created it on an Intel-based
Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 and the image contained just a
single package file (e.g. an application).

Fixed bug where Append Current Date didn’t work
properly when the original file/folder had a very long
name.

Fixed bug where images converted from Zip archives were
owned by root.

The Software Update… feature now checks whether the
updated version can run on your installed version of Mac OS
X.

Fixed bug where the Software Update… checker didn’t
always re-check for new updates.

Modernized the crash reporter code.

Updated Dutch and Italian localizations.

Fixed help book icon.

2.8—April 4, 2007

Improved compatibility with pre-release versions of Mac OS X
10.5.

Passphrases are now set in a separate dialog rather than
directly in the preferences window, and this has been
combined with the old Confirm Passphrase feature. This
makes it easier to verify a passphrase when you enter it.

DropDMG now accesses the keychain only when necessary, so it
won’t prompt you to unlock the keychain if you’re creating
an image that doesn’t have a passphrase.

The Software Update… checker now works behind an HTTP
proxy, and the auto-updater is compatible with FileVault.

Rewrote the Software Update… feature. When a new version is
available, it can now show you the release notes. DropDMG now
downloads the new version itself, rather than relying on your
browser. The Download & Install button will cause DropDMG
to auto-update itself to the latest version.

Added recommended segment sizes to the manual and tooltip.

If no windows are open when you click on DropDMG’s icon in the
Dock, it will now open the Status window.

The Volume Name field is ignored when creating a device
image, so it’s now disabled in that case.

Aliases in the RecentFolders folder are now created with
icons.

Dates in the log now follow the user’s preferred short format.

Fixed bug where it was possible to change the destination folder
without the active configuration changing to (custom).

Fixed bug where clicking the Confirm button could change the
configuration to (custom).

Fixed regression where DropDMG didn’t set the image name based
on the localized name of the source file/folder.

Fixed a small memory leak when making custom icons.

Fixed bug converting multiple archives from the same folder.

The segment size field is now disabled when unchecked.

Fixed bug with display of remaining demo time.

Fixed bug with Purchase window sheet.

More code modernization and bullet-proofing.

Made various localization, documentation, and error message
improvements.

2.7.8—July 13, 2006

Fixed regression where double-clicking a license agreement
sometimes wouldn’t open its editor window.

2.7.7—June 29, 2006

The Get Image Info… and image conversion features now
support .iso disk images.

Rather than typing (or copying and pasting) your name and serial
number to personalize DropDMG, you can now click the
x-dropdmg:// URL that’s sent to you when you purchase DropDMG or get a serial number
reminder.

Errors encountered while preparing to create an image are no
longer reported twice.

Mounting errors are now displayed properly.

Improved display of keychain errors.

Added Danish localization and updated the other localizations.

Made various improvements to the manual.

2.7.4—October 25, 2005

Fixed bug where DropDMG would create a blank image when running
on Mac OS X 10.3 and given a file or document package (i.e. not
a folder or application).

2.7.3—October 25, 2005

You can now view and set the current configuration from
DropDMG’s Dock menu.

Added “Expand Disk Image” Automator action, which replaces a
disk image with a folder containing the image’s contents. You
can create an “Expand Image” contextual menu item in the Finder
by creating a single-step Automator workflow with this action
and saving it as a Finder plug-in.

Problems with the destination folder are now reported using the
“choose destination” sheet instead of in a separate alert.

The software update feature now shows a sheet instead of an
alert when there’s a new version, so it won’t interfere with
scripted operations.

Fixed regression where DropDMG would complain at launch if one
of the configurations’ destination folders didn’t exist.

Fixed bug where DropDMG would waste CPU time animating an
off-screen progress bar after finishing an operation.

Added Technical Support & Feedback item to Help menu.

Updated eSellerate engine and PCRE.

2.7.2—September 22, 2005

You can now drag and drop anywhere on DropDMG’s status window,
rather than just on the top part of it.

Fixed bug where DropDMG was incompatible with StuffIt Expander
10.

DropDMG now reports an error if you specify a destination folder
that doesn’t exist, rather than silently picking a fallback
folder.

Better error messages when DropDMG doesn’t find a file in the
expected place.

The command-line tool now treats the empty string as an invalid
destination folder instead of (as with AppleScript) treating it
as a flag to indicate that the user should be prompted to
specify a folder. This should reduce unexpected behavior when
running DropDMG via a shell script that doesn’t properly quote
the command-line arguments.

Errors during burning are now presented using a sheet, rather
than just being logged.

No longer shows an error message if you try to install the
command-line tool and then cancel out of the authorization
dialog.

Updated the Italian localization.

2.7.1—August 22, 2005

You can now erase rewritable discs before burning.

Fixed regression where DropDMG could crash when converting an
image to an archive.

Worked around hdiutil bug for more reliable imaging of
certain non-optical volumes.

Fixed regression where the command-line tool didn’t work on Mac
OS X 10.3.

2.7—August 15, 2005

Added commands for burning folders, files, and disk images.
As a shortcut, you can initiate a burn by dragging and dropping
onto the status window or the DropDMG icon while holding down
the Shift key. Hold down Option and Shift when dropping a disk
image if you want to burn the image as a file, rather than
burning its contents.

Progress windows now have a cancel button, an icon showing the
kind of file that’s being created, and an icon and title bar
menu that show the source file or folder.

Added Quit When Done option; if selected, DropDMG will quit
when there are no longer any image, archive, or burn operations
in progress.

The status window now has a pop-up menu for displaying and
changing the current configuration.

Better creation of device images from multi-partition devices.

Progress windows are now tiled (so they don’t overlap), and
DropDMG is better at remembering where you like to position
them. Dragging a progress window sets the preferred location for
new progress windows.

The following File menu commands can now accept multiple
selection, so that you can operate on more than one image at a
time: Fix Image…, Get Image Info…, Mount Image (with
Owners)…, Verify Image Checksum….

Improved scriptability. You can now access DropDMG’s windows,
menus, and other interface elements from AppleScript. You can
also access the current imaging and burning operations and
cancel them. You can initiate burns from AppleScript.

The Automator action is now a universal binary.

The dropdmg command-line tool now properly communicates with
the DropDMG application when running on Intel.

Fixed bug where image creation could fail with an error when
creating an image on an external volume, depending on the lengths of
the source and destination paths.

Fixed regression where DropDMG would halt with a permissions
error when creating an image from a lone file and running on Mac
OS X 10.3.

2.6.1—June 20, 2005

DropDMG can now create .dmg disk images that are internally
compressed using bzip2. These images can only be mounted on Mac OS X
10.4 and later, but they are often much smaller than zlib-compressed
disk images.

Made various optimizations for faster disk image creation.

Added Mount Image (with Owners)… command. This lets you copy
files off an image with their Unix ownership intact. (Normally, when
you let the OS mount an image, it pretends that all the files are
owned by you.)

The Add Agreement… command is now enabled even when the
License Agreements window isn’t open. This should prevent people
from being confused about how to create a new agreement.

The Append Current Date option is now applied only when creating
new images, not when converting.

If you tell DropDMG to segment an image/archive, and it ends up
being smaller than the segment size that you chose, DropDMG will no
longer wrap the output files in a folder (since there’s only one).

The keyboard shortcut for Open Configurations is now
Command-Option-,.

Worked around some Tiger issues that could cause DropDMG to halt
part way through creating an image.

Worked around bug in Tiger where .bz2 and .gz files would
have .dmg type and creator codes, which could cause problems
opening them.

Worked around Tiger issue so that it’s once again possible to remove
a license agreement by converting (using None as the agreement).

Better cleanup if there’s an error creating the image.

DropDMG no longer complains when there’s no default keychain.

.mailbundle folders are now treated as packages, even though
technically they aren’t.

Filename uniquing is now smarter when there are two extensions. So,
for example, you’ll end up with Foo-1.tar.bz2 instead of
Foo.tar-1.bz2.

Fixed bug where sometimes custom icons didn’t work if you created
multiple images simultaneously.

Fixed bug where images created from volumes couldn’t be
Internet-enabled.

When creating encrypted images, the passphrase is now sent to
hdiutil securely using a pipe instead of on the command
line.

A Cancel button is now available when you’re prompted to
enter image and volume names.

When creating a segmented image or archive, the segments are now
placed in a newly created folder.

Normalizes serial number case when personalizing, to make it
less error-prone.

You can hold down the Option key when clicking OK to dismiss
multiple temporary preferences sheets at once.

If the chosen destination folder is read-only, DropDMG now
prompts for a new destination folder rather than aborting with
an error.

When you try to delete a license agreement, DropDMG now shows an
alert sheet to make sure that’s what you really meant.

The returningimmediately AppleScript parameter is no longer
needed and has been removed. If you want the AppleScript command
to return before the operation is complete, use a standard
AppleScript withtimeout block.

The createimage AppleScript command now returns the path of
the created image/archive. The command-line tool prints the path
to standard output.

The When Imaging a Package option has been removed from the
preferences, but is still available via AppleScript and the
command line.

When creating an image, DropDMG now preserves ownerships and
permissions, rather than just permissions. (This will not be
evident unless you uncheck Ignore ownership on this volume
after mounting the image.)

Fixed bug where you’d have to authenticate more often than
necessary.

Fixed bug where relative paths did not work with the dropdmg
tool’s --destination switch.

Fixed bug where top-level symlinks were resolved instead of
being copied as links.

Fixed bug where it was possible to rename a license agreement,
giving it the same name as another agreement.

Fixed bug where DropDMG would sometimes return a “permission
denied” error when calculating the space necessary to image a
folder. Now, it will instead prompt for an administrator
password.

Fixed bug where sometimes you’d be prompted for a password after
already entering one in the preferences sheet.

DropDMG now requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later.

2.2—October 16, 2003

Added dropdmg tool for creating images from the
command-line.

You can now create an image from a file by dropping it on
DropDMG; you no longer have to “wrap” the file in a folder.

You can now specify the passphrase for an encrypted image via
AppleScript.

Can save a passphrase in the system Keychain, so that you can
encrypt multiple images using the same passphrase, without
having to keep typing it.

Lets you authenticate as an administrator to copy protected
files to an image.

Images can now be encoded with BinHex.

You can now drag a file or folder onto the preferences to set
the destination.

License agreements can use non-roman characters.

Added Get Image Info… command.

Added Verify Image Checksum… command.

Added crash reporter.

Added software update version checker.

Faster MacBinary encoding.

Uses less memory when dealing with lots of files.

The destination pop-up menu now includes icons.

Rather than nagging when unregistered, DropDMG now has a
30-day/20-launch trial period.

Fixed bug that caused an error when creating more than one
self-mounting image simultaneously.

Fixed bug where DropDMG never prompted for volume and image
names when you used a temporary preferences sheet.

DropDMG now requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later.

2.1.1—July 21, 2003

Fixed bug where converting a .dmg file created by Disk Copy
to .img or .smi caused the .dmg file to remain in
use so that it couldn’t be deleted, or its volume ejected.

Adding license agreements to images now works on Panther.

Fixed open/save dialog prompts to be more in line with the Aqua
Human Interface Guidelines.

Fixed bug where DropDMG sometimes didn’t detect filename
collisions until after it started making the image.

Fixed bug where DropDMG would overwrite pre-existing
.dmgpart files if the first segment was not present and the
newly created image happened to have the same name.

Renamed some File menu commands.

1.6—July 15, 2002

Option to make images auto-open. When you mount an image, its
window opens in the Finder. Previously, there might have been no
visual indication that the image had mounted, depending on how
the user’s Finder preferences were set.

The status window has a contextual menu for quickly changing
common preferences.

You can optionally set the names of the image file and volume,
instead of having them based on the name of the folder.

Documentation is now included in Apple Help (HTML) format as
well as PDF.

Contains a menu command for clearing the log.

No longer fails when copying files for which the user only has
read privileges. Previously, DropDMG would copy the file and
permissions and then report a permissions error when it tried to
set the catalog information of the copy, which wasn’t writable.

The radio buttons for selecting where the image will be saved
are no longer linked to the image destination text field. That
is, tabbing of the text field no longer affects the radio
button’s selection, making the preferences more friendly for
keyboard navigators.

1.5—May 2, 2002

Multi-threading—DropDMG can create more than one image at a
time, and the interface remains responsive.

Encodes Mac OS 9 .img images with MacBinary so that they
can be transferred on the Internet.

The status window displays a log that shows all the completed
operations and errors.

The status window now shows all the format options that are in
effect.

Faster copying of Mac metadata.

Worked around Apple bug that sometimes caused errors when
creating large images. hdiutil crashed when expanding sparse
images.

Fixed bug where DropDMG mistakenly resolved symlinks when
copying Mac metadata. This had caused some metadata not to be
copied, and also caused image creation to fail if the user
didn’t have write access to the original file.

Fixed regression where DropDMG sometimes didn’t complain when
the destination folder was inside the source folder.

Tries several times to eject images, rather than giving up
immediately.

More detailed reporting of file copy errors.

More accurate reporting of what state the image creation
process is in when errors occur.

Mailing list for version announcements has a Web interface.

1.3.1—March 11, 2002

You can now create images by dragging and dropping folders into
the status window.

The status window’s indication of the progress is more
accurate.

Fixed regression in which images couldn’t be created on
non-boot volumes.

Fixed regression in which images couldn’t be created in
~/Desktop if the destination folder had never been manually
set.

1.3—February 25, 2002

You can now choose whether images are saved next to the source
folder, or in a user-defined folder.

Volume images are now created in ~/Desktop by default
(instead of /Volumes).

Resolved problem in which DropDMG tried to replace invisible
system files on the image, if the source folder contained items
with the same names.

The format parameter is now optional when creating images
with AppleScript.

Notifies the system after fixing an image’s type and creator.

Fixed bug in which DropDMG would report the wrong file as the
cause of a copy error.